"I always smell them when I go past," said the other, ele
vating her scornful little nose; it was a handsome nose too.
"I don't think it makes any difference," said Miss Bentley, "provided people have money, how they came by it. Money buys the same thing for one that it does for another."
"Now, my good Bentley, that is just what it don't," said St. Clair, drumming up the window-pane with the tips of her fingers.
"Why not?"
"Because!—people that have always had money know how to use it; and people who have just come into their money don't know. You can tell the one from the other as far off as the head of the avenue."
"But what is to hinder their going to the same milliner and mantua-maker, for instance, or the same cabinet-maker,—and buying the same things?"
"Or the same jeweller, or the same—anything? So they could if they knew which they were."
"Which what were? It is easy to tell which is a fashionable milliner, or mantua-maker; everybody knows that."
"It don't do some people any good," said St. Clair, turning away. "When they get in the shop they do not know what to buy; and if they buy it they can't put it on. People that are not fashionable can't be fashionable."