"For what? Oh, yes. I have a natural interest in the welfare of my husband. But I think Mrs. Cheyne is wasting her time."
"I think perhaps you underrate her," he muttered.
"I'd rather underrate Mrs. Cheyne than underrate myself," proudly.
He was silent for a moment, flicking at the weeds with his riding-crop.
"Mrs. Cheyne and you have nothing in common, Camilla," he said. "I'm afraid it isn't in you to understand this crowd. The set in which she and I were brought up is a little world in itself. The things which happen outside of it are none of its concern. It doesn't care. It has its own rules and its own code of decency to which it makes its members subscribe. It is New York in miniature, the essence, the cream of its vices, its virtues, and its follies. It lives like that poison-ivy along the fence, stretching out its tendrils luxuriously in the direction of the sun, moving along the line of least resistance. It does not care what newer growth it stunts, what blossom learns to grow beneath its shade, to fade and droop, perhaps to wither for lack of air and sunlight——"
"And yet—there's Gretchen," she said, "and you."
He smiled almost gaily. "Yes, there are many Gretchens, thank God. Girls with the clean, sound vision of their sturdy forbears, whose mothers were young when the city still felt the impress of its early austerities."
"And you?" she repeated.
His brow darkened and he looked straight before him.
"What I am doesn't matter. I was born and bred in this atmosphere. Isn't that enough?"