Bailey, Sr., shrugged his shoulders, patiently.
"What's the use, Clive?"
"Use? Well there's no particular use. I'm not in love with her. Did you think I was?"
"I don't think any more. Your mother does that for me.... Don't make anybody unhappy, my son."
His mother, also, had made very frank representations to him on several occasions, the burden of them being that common people beget common ideas, common associations corrupt good manners, and that "nice" girls would continue to view with disdain and might ultimately ostracise any misguided young man of their own caste who played about
with a woman for whose existence nobody who was anybody could account.
"The daughter of a Long Island road-house keeper! Why, Clive! where is your sense of fitness! Men don't do that sort of thing any more!"
"What sort of thing, mother?"
"What you are doing."