lies close their doors to rich
Americans, or like that other story Mrs. Marchmont was talking to us of,
about the Jewish ladies who were crazy to become Catholics."

"I don't see what you are trying to prove by all this," said Laura.

"I am trying to prove that all there is underneath distinguished society
is money, for which reason it doesn't matter if it is destroyed. The
cleverest and finest man, if he has no money, will die of hunger in a
corner. Smart society, which thinks itself superior, will never receive
him, because being really superior and intelligent is of no value on
the market. On the other hand, when it is a question of some very rich
brute, he will succeed in being accepted and feted by the aristocrats,
because money has a real value, a quotable value, or I'd better say, it
is the only thing that has a quotable value."

"What you are saying isn't true. A man doesn't go with the best people
merely because he is rich."

"No, certainly; not immediately. There is a preparatory process. He
begins by robbing people in some miserable little shop, and feels
himself democratic. Then he robs in a bank, and at that period he feels
that he is a Liberal and begins to experience vaguely aristocratic
ideas. If business goes splendidly, the aristocratic ideas get
crystallized. Then he can come to Rome and go into ecstasies over
all the humbugs of Catholicism; and after that, one is authorized to
acknowledge that the religion of our fathers is a beautiful religion,
and one finishes by giving a tip to the Pope, and another to Cardinal
Verry, so that they will make him Prince of the Ecumenical Council or
Marquis of the Holy Crusade."

"What very stupid and false ideas," exclaimed Laura. "Really I
appreciate having a brother who talks in such a vulgar way."

"You are an aristocrat and the truth doesn't please you. But such are
the facts. I can see the chief of the bureau of Papal titles. What fun
he must have thinking up the most appropriate title for a magnate of
Yankee tinned beef or for an illustrious Andean general! How magnificent
it would be to gather all the Bishops _in partibus infidelium_ and all
the people with Papal titles in one drawing-room! The Bishop of Nicaea
discussing with the Marquis of the Holy Roman Empire; the Marchioness of
Easter Sunday flirting with the Bishop of Sion, while the Patriarchs
of Thebes, Damascus, and Trebizond played bridge with the sausage
manufacturer, Mr. Smiles, the pork kin