ll move in just this direction.
I have very little, and I preferred not to tie up everything in a house
we might not wish to keep."

"I see. She appreciates that people may take us up any time. She thinks
you are distinguished looking."

"If she isn't careful, I shall make you jealous, Selma. Was there
anything you didn't discuss?"

"I regard you as the peer of any Morton Price alive. Why aren't you?"

"Far be it from me to discourage such a wifely conclusion. Provided you
think so, I don't care for any one else's opinion."

"But you agree with her. That is, you consider because people of that
sort don't invite us to their houses, they are better than we."

"Nothing of the kind. But there's no use denying the existence of social
classes in this city, and that, though I flatter myself you and I are
trying to make the most of our lives in accordance with the talents and
means at our disposal, we are not and are not likely to become, for the
present at any rate, socially prominent. That's what you have in mind, I
think. I don't know those people; they don't know me. Consequently they
do not ask me to their beautiful and costly entertainments. Some day,
perhaps, if I am very successful as an architect, we may come more in
contact with them, and they will have a chance to discover what a
charming wife I have. But from the point of view of society, your
neighbor Mrs. Williams is right. She evidently has a clear head on her
shoulders and knows what she desires. You and I believe that we can get
more happiness out of life by pursuing the even tenor of our way in the
position in which we happen to find ourselves."

"I don't understand it," said Selma, shaking her head and looking into
space with her spiritual expression. "It troubles me. It isn't American.
I didn't think such distinctions existed in this country. Is it all a
question of money, then? Do intelligence and--er--purpose count for
nothing?"

"My dear girl, it simply means that the people who are on top--the
people who, by force of success, or ability, or money, are most
prominent in the community, associate together, and the world gives a
certain prominence to their doings. Here, where fortunes have been made
so rapidly, and we have no formal aristocracy, money undoubtedly plays a
conspicuous part in giving access to what is known as society. But it is
only an entering wedge. Money supplies the means to cultivate manners
and the right way of looking at things