“If I could only convince you that there is something beside money in the world.”
“Not for those to whom money is the breath of life,” replied I.
When we returned to her hotel she urged me to come in for tea. We went into the greenroom, to listen to the music and to observe the crowds. There was a sprinkling of men, but two thirds were women—women of all classes and conditions, above the working class. Women obviously fashionable as well as rich. Women obviously only rich. Women living off men respectably. Women “trimming” here and there. An army of pretty women—well-cared-for bodies, attractive faces, inviting the various kinds of sensual attack from the subtlest to the frankest. This woman at the next table is rather cheaply dressed, except a gorgeous hat. That woman yonder has contrived to “trim” only a handsome set of furs; it looks grotesque with the rest of the costume. A third has a huge gilt bag as her sole claim to sisterhood with the throng of fair pampered parasites upon husbands, fathers, lovers. A charming and a useless throng. No, not charming, unless a man happens to be in the mood in which he succumbs to the trimming process with pleasure—and then, he would not think them altogether useless.
“New York grows more and more like Europe,” said my wife, gazing around with shining eyes, and inhaling the heavily scented atmosphere with dilating nostrils. “More and more like Europe.”
“More and more,” replied I. “Especially the women.”
“Oh, they’re ahead of the European women,” said she.
“So they are,” said I. “Yes—they beat the European women at it. But I’m not sure whether that’s because they are really cleverer, or merely because our men trim more readily.”
She regarded me with an expression of mildly interested perplexity, as if she couldn’t imagine what was the “it” I was talking about. “You must admit they are lovely,” said she.
“Admit it?” said I. “I proclaim it. If a man’s notion of dinner is only the dessert, he couldn’t do better.”
She looked still more vague—one of her tricks when she wished to avoid or to ignore. “I never touch desserts,” said she.