They were everything he detested about life: the unfairness of it, the brutal and merciless wheel of fortune that doled out the good luck to the haves and the bad luck to the have nots, the false cleanliness and faked uprightness of the upper crust, when it was obvious to one and all that Ludenmere had made his money down in the mud that had mired Pearly to a state of near-poverty and certainly at times a numbing desperation. Oh no, Ludenmere wasn’t clean, he thought. Far from it. And these two kids standing here smiling under this electric fan in this parlor room in this mansion fortress are
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