rich person, it would be you."

"Good Lord, I'm not rich. Wish I were. Rich!"

"Oh, but you are, you know. You're what _we_ mean by rich.... And it's
not only that. There's Denis and Lucy too. We've parted ways, and I do
think it's best we shouldn't meet much. What's the good of beginning
again to want things one can't have? I might, you know; and it would
hurt. I don't now. I've given it all up. I don't want money; I don't want
Denis's affection ... or Lucy ... or any of the things I have wanted, and
that I've lost. I'm happy without them; without anything but what one
finds to play with here as one goes along. One finds good things, you
know--friends, and sunshine, and beauty, and enough minestra to go on
with, and sheltered places on the shore to boil one's kettle in. I'm
happy. Wouldn't it be madness to leave it and go out and begin having and
wanting things again?"

Lord Evelyn had been listening with a curious expression of comprehension
struggling with impatience.

"And the boy?" he said. "D'you suppose there'll never come a time when
you want for the boy more than you can give him here, in these dirty
little towns you like so much?"

"Oh," said Peter, "how can one look ahead? Depend on it, if Thomas is one
of the people who are born to have things, he will have them. And if he's
not, he won't, whatever I try to get for him. He's only one and a half
now; so at least there's time before we need think of that. He's happy at
present with what he's got."