is," he said, when the
orchestra had ceased.

She looked back at him with eyes moist and dreamy. "I know," she
murmured.

There seemed no reason why Grant should not there and then have laid
himself, figuratively, at her feet. And there was not any reason--only
one. He wanted first to go west. He almost hoped that out there
some light of disillusionment would fall about him; that some sudden
experience such as he had known the night before would readjust his
personality in accordance with the inevitable...

"I asked you to dine with me to-night," he heard himself saying, "for
two reasons: first, for the delight of your exquisite companionship; and
second, because I want to place before you certain business plans which,
to me at least, are of the greatest importance.

"You know the position which I have taken with regard to the spending of
money, that one should not spend on himself or his friends anything
but his own honest earnings for which he has given honest service to
society. I have seen no reason to change my position. On the contrary
the war has strengthened me in my convictions. It has brought home to
me and to the world the fact that heroism is a flower which grows in no
peculiar soil, and that it blossoms as richly among the unwashed and the
underfed as among the children of fortune. This fact only aggravates
the extremes of wealth and poverty, and makes them seem more unjust than
ever.

"For myself I have accepted this view, but our financial system is
founded upon very different ethics. I wonder if you have ever thought
of the fact that when the barons at Runnymede laid the foundations of
democratic government for the world they overlooked the almost equally
important matter of creating a democratic system of finance. Well--let's
not delve into that now. The point is that under our present system we
do acquire wealth which we do not earn, and the only thing to be done
for the time being is to treat that wealth as a trust to be managed for
the benefit of humanity. That is what I call the new morality as applied
to money, although it is not so new either. It can be traced back at
least nineteen hundred years, and all our philanthropists, great and
little, have surely caught some glimpse of that truth, unless, perhaps,
they gave their alms that they might have honor of men. But giving one's
money away does not solve the problem; it pauperizes the recipient and
delays the evolution of new conditions in wh