But if not, then she must raise her prices. To waste her substance, to expend the success of her life in entertaining folk gratis who, after all, would believe that they were paying for their entertainment, would be worse even than going to Schwatz. “I have been thinking over what you were telling me,” she said to Mr. Cartwright about a week after their last interview, on the day before his departure from the valley.
“I hope you do not find I was wrong, Frau Frohmann.”
“As for wrong and right, that is very difficult to get at in this wicked world.”
“That is where it is, sir. One can see what is necessary; but if one could only see that it were right also, one would be so much more comfortable.”
“There are things so hard to be seen, my friend, that let us do what we will we cannot see clearly into the middle of them. Perhaps I could have explained to you better all this about the depreciation of money, and the nominal rise in the value of everything else, if I had understood it better myself.”
“I am sure you understand all about it,--which a poor woman can’t ever do.”
“But this at any rate ought to give you confidence, that that which you purpose to do is being done by everybody around you. You were talking to me about the Weisses. Herr Weiss, I hear, had his salary raised last spring.”
“Had he?” asked the Frau with energy and a little start. For this piece of news had not reached her before.
“Somebody was saying so the other day. No doubt it was found that he must be paid more because he had to pay more for everything he wanted. Therefore he ought to expect to have to pay you more.”
This piece of information gave the Frau more comfort than anything she had yet heard. That gold should be common, what people call a drug in the market, did not come quite within the scope of her comprehension. Gold to her was gold, and a zwansiger a zwansiger. But if Herr Weiss got more for his services from the community, she ought to get more from him for her services. That did seem plain to her. But then her triumph in that direction was immediately diminished by a tender feeling as to other customers. “But what of those poor Fraulein Tendels?” she said.
“Ah, yes,” said Mr. Cartwright. “There you come to fixed incomes.”