“How true!” she said reminiscently.
“You know how amazed I was when I realized that,” he said showing his amazement all again. “After the dust settled down, I began to analyze the import of the events of my tumultuous life. When I recalled that girl who came to nail me in court, the spirit of her character struck me no end. Just imagine the possibilities that held out for her then. When the scandal broke out, had she wanted, she could have sold her silence at her own price. Instead, she was prepared to stake her honor in the interests of justice, that too at the risk of being shamed by Mehrotra, though in camera.”
He paused for a while, recalling her in adoration.
“Oh, how she demonstrated the powerlessness of wealth against her sense of purpose!” he said on resumption. “Well, my father’s wealth and Mehrotra’s wile added up to nothing before the resolve of that have-not. In the end, it was her sense of spirit that inspired me to live down my past to live for another day. In a way I owe everything to her!”
Affected by his sense of emotion, she sank into his arms to share his feeling, and said, “No less do I.”
“She has proved that the clout of the rich owes itself to the coveting of the poor,” he said, caressing her head.
“Oh, how true!” she said reflectively. “It’s their own craving for money that makes men and women alike court the moneyed, and that gives the rich a false sense of power over the poor. Why blame the rich for their conceit when it is the making of the poor?”
“True, the desire for power could be behind man’s craving for wealth,” he said reminiscently. “But it doesn’t help to cut corners in pursuit of wealth for any. Don’t you have our family history to prove that?”
“I don’t agree as it’s not the rule and, if anything, it’s an exception,” she said disentangling herself from him, as though to physically demonstrate her dissent. “Why, won't the corrupt prosper in general?”
“Well it may appear so,” he said. “But scratch the surface a little and you will have a better view of its irony. Why should one want to be wealthy when life needs no props of riches for its enrichment? That’s why chasing money is but a human fallacy. Yet, the middle-class mentality makes man seek monies to enjoy the false sense of security. And by cutting corners what do they get but bits and pieces of accretion? Oh, how they have to take care to remain faceless while still active in their occupation! And in time, they insensibly melt into the multitude of the retired to continue their humdrum existence but not before contributing their mite to corrupt the system. In the end, unnoticed, they leave the stage, bequeathing their ill-gotten wealth to their kith and kin. That’s all there is to their life and death. Once in away, however, the law of averages catches up with some with the accompanying loss of face.”