You're after something there isn't anything to. If I'd let you buy what you want to with your money and your whole life, you'd find it as empty as the morning after Judgment Day.
[She turns from him, smiling and superior.]
You think because I'm a jay country lawyer I don't understand it and couldn't understand you! Why, we've got just the same thing at home. There was little Annie Hoffmeyer. Her pa was a carpenter and doing well. But Annie couldn't get into the Kokomo Ladies' Literary Club, and her name didn't show up in the society column four or five times every Saturday morning, so she got her pa to give her the money to marry Artie Seymour, the minister's son—and a regular minister's son he was! Almost broke [pg 109] Hoffmeyer's heart, but he let her have her way and went in debt and bought them a little house on North Main Street. That was two years ago. Annie's workin' at the depoe candy-stand now and Artie's workin' at the hotel bar—in front—drinking up what's left of old Hoffmeyer's—settlement!
ETHEL
[outraged]
And you say you understand—you who couple the name of a tippling yokel with that of a St. Aubyn—a gentleman of distinction.
PIKE
Distinction? I didn't know he was distinguished.
ETHEL
[in a ringing voice]