And can you understand that it has sometimes shamed me?
Just because I happen to have money I can do this! Isn't it a poor sordid world?
Not one man, but perhaps a hundred, could be raised into a new existence by what in my hands is mere superfluity of means.
Doesn't such a thought make life a great foolish game?
Suppose me saying, 'Here is a thousand pounds; shall I buy a yacht to play with, or--shall I lift a living man's soul out of darkness into light ?' He broke off and laughed bitterly.

Annabel glanced at him.

She noticed that thoughts of this cast were now frequent in his mind, though formerly they had been strange to him.

He used to face problems with simple directness, in the positive spirit or with an idealist's enthusiasm; now he leaned to scepticism, though it was his endeavour to conceal the tendency.

She was struck with the likeness of this change in him to that which she herself was suffering; yet it did not touch her sympathies, and she was anxious forthwith to avoid coincidence with him.
'You yourself offer the answer to that,' she replied.