Mr. Peck smiled, and this was the first break in his seriousness. "We don't
know what is or will be American yet. But we will suppose you are quite
right. The question is, how would you feel toward the people whose company
you wouldn't force yourself into?"
"Why, of course," Annie was surprised into saying, "I suppose I shouldn't
feel very kindly toward them."
"Even if you knew that they felt kindly toward you?"
"I'm afraid that would only make the matter worse," she said, with an
uneasy laugh.
The minister was silent on his side of the stove.
"But do I understand you to say," she demanded, "that there can be no love
at all, no kindness, between the rich and the poor? God tells us all to
love one another."
"Surely," said the minister. "Would you suffer such a slight as your
friends propose, to be offered to any one you loved?"
She did not answer, and he continued, thoughtfully: "I suppose that if
a poor person could do a rich person a kindness which cost him some
sacrifice, he might love him. In that case there could be love between
the rich and the poor."
"And there could be no love if a rich man did the same?"
"Oh yes," the minister said--"upon the same ground. Only, the rich man
would have to make a sacrifice first that he would really feel."
"Then you mean to say that people can't do any good at all with their
money?" Annie asked.
"Money is a palliative, but it can't cure. It can sometimes create a bond
of gratitude perhaps, but it can't create sympathy between rich and poor."
"But _why_ can't it?"
"Because sympathy--common feeling--the sense of fraternity--can spring only
from like experiences, like hopes, like fears. And money cannot buy these."
He rose, and looked a moment about him, as if trying to recall something.
Then, with a stiff obeisance, he said, "Good evening," and went out,
while she remained daunted and bewildered, with the child in her arms, as
unconscious of having kept it as he of having left it with her.
Mrs. Bolton must have reminded him of his oversight, for after being gone
so long as it would have taken him to walk to her parlour and back, he
returned, and said simply, "I forgot Idella."
He put out his hands to take her, but she turned perversely from him, and
hid her face in Annie's neck, pushing his hands away with a backward reach
of her little arm.