It's a squalid hole. Six
months ago, when I got my seventy-five hundred a year, I thought I
was rich. Rich? Why, that woman there has ten years' salary on her
hair. All the money I and my whole family ever saw wouldn't pay
for the rings on any one of a hundred hands here. It makes me mad
and it makes me greedy."
"'I warned you," said Arkwright.
Craig wheeled on him. "You don't--can't--understand. You're like
all these people. Money is your god. But I don't want money, I
want power--to make all these snobs with their wealth, these
millionaires, these women with fine skins and beautiful bodies,
bow down before me--that's what I want!"
Arkwright laughed. "Well, it's up to you, Joshua."
Craig tossed his Viking head. "Yes, it's up to me, and I'll get
what I want--the people and I.... Who's THAT frightful person?"
Into the room, only a few feet from them, advanced an old woman--
very old, but straight as a projectile. She carried her head high,
and her masses of gray-white hair, coiled like a crown, gave her
the seeming of royalty in full panoply. There was white lace over
her black velvet at the shoulders; her train swept yards behind
her.
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