"And made us in a way responsible."
"No one is responsible for the inevitable, Steuart—except the man himself and the power of his money. The combination is irresistible."
"In these days, yes," he replied. "As a people, we have become utterly commercialized—we have put everything on the basis of dollars, our social life along with the rest. It is pitiable but it is true. We have no traditions left—or rather we have only traditions left. In some of the towns in the South, they still honor their traditions by living up to them—dollars won't buy a way in, you have to belong. But with us—" he ended with a shrug. "Look on your other hand, if you doubt it."
"What are we going to do about it?" she asked smilingly—"accept the inevitable, or be exclusive all by our lonesome?"
"We wouldn't be alone if we would pull together," he commented.
"United we stand, divided we fall. It's the same everywhere," she replied. "We're not united because the old spirit of class has departed. It's every one for himself now—and no quarter given nor expected."
"Well, I can stand it if you women can," he remarked.
"Don't you think that it is woman who is commercializing society, so to speak—who is accepting money, if you please, to let the outsiders in. She wants a rich husband—if he happens to be her social equal, well and good, but it's the money that moves her."
"That may be true so far as it goes—but it doesn't go far enough," he replied. "We men also are to blame. Daughters marry where their parents let them. It may be indifference in our sex and premeditation in the women, but both are about equally culpable. There is small choice between us. We have got far away from our old moorings of respectability and conservatism."