"By all but breaking myself."
"It's worth whatever it cost. If I had a dress suit, we'd go to Sherry's or the Waldorf. I'm willing to go, without the dress suit."
"No. I've got everything ready for dinner at home."
"Then, why on earth did you dress? To give me a treat?"
"Oh, I hate to go out in a dress I've never worn. And a woman has to wear a hat a good many times before she knows how."
"What a lot of fuss you women do make about clothes."
"You seem to like it, all the same."
"Of course. But it's a trifle."
"It has got many women a good provider for life. And not paying attention to dress or not knowing how has made most of the old maids. Are those things trifles?"
Spenser laughed and shifted his ground without any sense of having been pressed to do so. "Men are fools where women are concerned."
"Or women are wise where men are concerned."