"Yes."
"Well, she is there."
"Yes?" as Everet pauses.
"Yes. She could not remain in Washington any longer. She has been in New York for six months now."
"What is she doing?"
Everet does not reply for a moment; then he continues:
"The last year she was there was a disastrous one for her. The old set were enraged by certain of her desperate exploits in finance, and she did not get on with the new. It was impossible for her to remain there any longer, so she sought a new field in New York."
He is reluctant to say more, and pauses again.
"Well?" Braine speaks obstinately. "Go on."
"She went to New York and began living on a large scale—she still lives on a large scale—but Helen is a fine-grained woman to her finger tips, no matter what she has done. The Washington politician is bad enough, but the New York politician is a good deal worse—to a woman. When Helen sinks to the street commissioner and the sheriff, she is to be pitied. And it will come to that. Now that she has left the field that she was so long mistress of, she will not be able to reach the superior villains—no: that is hard on them. I'll call them men—we're all men."