“ What I envy you is your liberty,” observed M. de Bellegarde, “your wide range, your freedom to come and go, your not having a lot of people, who take themselves awfully seriously, expecting something of you. I live,” he added with a sigh, “beneath the eyes of my admirable mother.”
“ It is your own fault; what is to hinder your ranging?” said Newman.
“ There is a delightful simplicity in that remark! Everything is to hinder me. To begin with, I have not a penny.”
“ I had not a penny when I began to range.”
“ Ah, but your poverty was your capital. Being an American, it was impossible you should remain what you were born, and being born poor—do I understand it?—it was therefore inevitable that you should become rich. You were in a position that makes one’s mouth water; you looked r
