“Of course,” he said, “this only shows how right I was not to tell you. It’s the old story. Women don’t understand business.”
“I know. Business is a pair of spectacles that makes black into white, but I don’t wear spectacles myself. Are you going to tell me what you’re doing with that thousand pounds?”
“I told you it isn’t decided yet. But if the sales of that pamphlet go up this week as they did last, I’m going into the publishing business with it.”
“So that you can publish more of the same sort?”
“If I can get them. There’s a lot of money in it.”
“Sam,” she said earnestly, “is that all you’re caring about?”
“You told me yourself that Ada was not the wife for a poor man.” He considered that a very neat score, to seem to make Anne responsible, but Anne was not to be deceived by any such seeming. As she saw it, Ada had corrupted Sam, Ada was the motive of this misuse of his cleverness; and the bitterness for Anne was doubly poignant. She believed in Sam, with a faith which had never swerved in spite of her disappointment in his school career; but she realized now that he had been marking time in Travers’ office, that it was Ada and not she who had quickened his energies to rapid action. Ada had quickened them, where under Anne they had lain dormant but the quickening had been corrupt. It came from Ada, poisoned at the source, and took to poisonous ways.
They had touched bottom now and reached essentials. “Sam,” she said, “I was joking like when I said a man’s not rational when he’s in love. But it was a true word spoken in jest. You’re not rational or you wouldn’t be doing these things and making a byword of the name of Branstone, and the reason you’re not rational is Ada. If you were in love with a good woman, you could no more do dishonourable things than fly. But you’re in love with a bad woman and it leads to bad results. Sam, do you think I like to tell you that you’ve made a mistake? And do you think I don’t know? Lad, lad, I love you, and I’ve never reckoned myself a fool. Choose now, I’m not the sort of fool to be jealous just because you get wed. I’d none be jealous of the right lass, Sam. I’d take her and welcome her and know she had a better right to you than me. But Ada Struggles has no right: she’s mean and grasping and she’s small in every way there is. She’s----”