't know how they could come till they thought of making Conrad bring
them. But she didn't say why Miss Vance called on them. Mr. Dryfoos
doesn't employ her on 'Every Other Week.' But I suppose she has her own
vile little motive."

"It can't be their money; it can't be!" sighed Mrs. March.

"Well, I don't know. We all respect money."

"Yes, but Miss Vance's position is so secure. She needn't pay court to
those stupid, vulgar people."

"Well, let's console ourselves with the belief that she would, if
she needed. Such people as the Dryfooses are the raw material of good
society. It isn't made up of refined or meritorious people--professors
and litterateurs, ministers and musicians, and their families. All the
fashionable people there to-night were like the Dryfooses a generation
or two ago. I dare say the material works up faster now, and in a season
or two you won't know the Dryfooses from the other plutocrats. THEY
will--a little better than they do now; they'll see a difference, but
nothing radical, nothing painful. People who get up in the world by
service to others--through letters, or art, or science--may have their
modest little misgivings as to their social value, but people that rise
by money--especially if their gains are sudden--never have. And that's
the kind of people that form our nobility; there's no use pretending
that we haven't a nobility; we might as well pretend we haven't
first-class cars in the presence of a vestibuled Pullman. Those girls
had no more doubt of their right to be there than if they had been
duchesses: we thought it was very nice of Miss Vance to come and ask
us, but they didn't; they weren't afraid, or the least embarrassed; they
were perfectly natural--like born aristocrats. And you may be sure that
if the plutocracy that now owns the country ever sees fit to take on
the outward signs of an aristocracy--titles, and arms, and ancestors--it
won't falter from any inherent question of its worth. Money prizes and
honors itself, and if there is anything it hasn't got, it believes it
can buy it."

"Well, Basil," said his wife, "I hope you won't get infected with
Lindau's ideas of rich people. Some of them are very good and kind."

"Who denies that? Not even Lindau himself. It's all right. And the great
thing is that the evening's enjoyment is over. I've got my society
smile off, and I'm radiantly happy. Go on with your little pessimistic
diatribes, Isabel; you can't spoil my pleasure."