"And I'll tell you now that your subjects of conversation always bored me. I make no pretences; I frankly do not care for what you so smugly designate as 'the things of the mind' and 'things worth while.' I am no hypocrite: I like well bred, well dressed people; I like what they do and say and think. Their characters may be negative as you say, but their poise
and freedom from demonstration are most agreeable to me.
"You politely designated them as fools, and what they said you characterised as piffle. You had the exceedingly bad taste to sneer at various members of an ancient and established aristocracy—people who by inheritance from generations of social authority, require no toleration from such a man as you.
"These are the people who are my friends; among whom I enjoy an established position. This position you now threaten by coolly going into business in New York. In other and uglier words you advertise to the world that you have abandoned your home and wife.
"Of course I cannot help it if you insist on doing this common and disgraceful thing.
"And I suppose, considering the reigning family's attitude toward divorce, that you believe me to be at your mercy.
"Permit me to inform you that I am not. If, in a certain set, wherein I now have the entrée, divorce is not tolerated,—at any rate where the divorced wife of an American would not be received,—nevertheless there are other sets as desirable, perhaps even more desirable, and which enjoy a prestige as weighty.
"And I'll tell you now that in case you persist in affronting me by remaining in business in New York, I shall be forced to procure a separation—possibly a divorce. And I shall not suffer for it socially as no doubt you think I will.
"There is only one reason why I have not done so already—disinclination to be disturbed in a social
milieu which suits me. It's merely the inconvenience of a transfer to another equally agreeable set.