CHAPTER VA
CCORDING to a very wise philosopher, money is any old thing you choose, or circumstances allow you, to make of it. It’s as idiotic to call it a curse as to regard it as an unmitigated blessing. In any hands, whether strong or palsied, virtuous or vicious, it certainly means power. It dawned gradually on the upright Theophilus that it meant power over Evelina.
Suddenness of impulse or thought was not one of his characteristics. He had ever walked in dull wariness. His opinions, tastes and habits had been beaten out by the patient hammering of years. Thus, this lightning change of fortune did not immediately transform him—to use an extravagant figure of speech—from grub to butterfly. He had already undergone a preparatory process of development during the acquisition of his secr
