“Of course, all that began to react on the young men: if that was the kind of thing the girls liked, they must try to be in it. Slowly but surely a Pointview aristocracy began its line of cleavage and a process of integration. Crests appeared on the letter-heads and limousine doors of the newly rich. In a month or so people of brain and substance degenerated into a condition of hardened shameless idiocy.
“Some of our best citizens went abroad, each to find his place among the descendants of William the Conqueror. Suddenly I discovered that the clerk in my office was ashamed to be seen on the street with a package in his hands.
“Our young men began to long for wealth and leisure. They grew impatient of the old process of thrift and industry. It was too slow. Many of them opened accounts in Wall Street.
“Young Roger Daniels had some luck there and began to advertise the fact with a small steam-yacht and a cruise. We were going as hard as ever to keep up, but on higher levels of aspiration. The girls were engaged in a strenuous contest for the prize of Harry’s favor, with that handsome young divorcée well in the lead.
“Roger and his party were about to return from their cruise, and Harry was to give them a ball at the Yacht Club.
“The day before the ball our best known physician came to see Mrs. Potter, who was ill, and cheered us up with a story. The Doctor was young, attractive, and able. He had threatened every appendix in Pointview, and had a lot of inside information about our men and women––especially the latter. He looked weary.
“‘Yesterday was a little hard on me,’ he said. ‘It began at four in the morning with a confinement case and ended at one A.M. There were two operations at the 36 hospital, a steady stream at the office, and a twenty-mile ride over the hills. Got back in the evening pretty well worn out. Tumbled into bed at two minutes of eleven, and was asleep before the clock struck. The ’phone-bell at my bedside awoke me. I let it go on for a minute. Hadn’t energy enough to get up. It rang and rang. Out I tumbled.
“‘Hello!’ I said.
“‘A voice answered. “I am Mrs. So-and-So’s butler,” it said. “She wishes to see you as soon as you can get here. It’s very urgent.”