"I never knew a fellow," that amiable young Frenchman would say—"never knew a fellow so much at his ease in the world, who seemed so anxious to be rid of people as you are."
"I'm not at my ease in the world."
"Ah, I should have said in drawing-rooms."
"Another matter. The drawing-room is the best place I know to avoid knowing people. I should like to spend all my days that aren't spent with a rod on a river-bank, or lying in a boat with you, in drawing-rooms. I'd like"—he stared up into the high-piled clouds sailing across the intense blue—"I'd like the big Engine-driver up yonder to look down through the white steam-puffs, and say: 'My boy, I give you my word of honor that I'll never run you into any closer quarters with life than you are in now.'"
"I see," laughed De Poincy, "lovely woman has pursued you till you fight shy. But don't lay it all to your looks and your winning ways, my friend; you're known to have dollars."
"Yes." His dark face flushed under some quick wave of feeling. "The most surprising thing I've found in Europe is the dominance of the money motive, that quality that they had told me distinguished the American."
He laughed a little bitterly.
"Well," said De Poincy, "you know you do hear more in America about money than you do anywhere."
"Exactly. Money's talked about with childlike and damnable iteration; but, by all the gods! if decent people with us want it, they work for it; they don't cringe and angle for it; they offer labor in exchange, not themselves. They don't, as a nation, make it the basis of friendship, of marriage."
"If you don't, it's because American women are too self-willed to hear prudence."