At this Ben laughed lightly.
He might have had his wrong-headed notions about barriers, but he was not so un-American as to regard a father as an obstacle.
“But, oh, Crystal,” he added, “suppose you find you do hate being poor. It is a bore in some ways.”
Crystal, who had been tucking away the complicated dishes of her luncheon basket, looked at Ben and lightly sucked one finger to which some raspberry jam from Tomes’s supernal sandwiches had adhered.
“I sha’n’t mind it a bit, Ben,” she said, “and for a good reason—because I’m terribly conceited.” He did not understand at all, and she went on: “I believe I shall be just as much of a person—perhaps more—without money. The women who really mind being poor are the humble-minded ones, who think that they are made by their clothes and their lovely houses and their maids and their sables. When they lose them they lose all their personality, and of course that terrifies them. I don’t think I shall lose mine. Does it shock you to know that I think such a lot of myself?”
It appeared it did not shock him at all.
“Suppose You Find You Do Hate Being Poor?”
When they reached the house she established him in the drawing-room and went off to find her father.