"
"I wish I knew what you meant," he said, with some hesitation.
She laughed softly.
"Don't you understand," she said, "that you are the fashion? Last
year it was Indian Potentates, the year before it was actors, this
year it is millionaires. You have only to announce yourself and you
may take any place you choose in society. You have arrived at the
most auspicious moment. I can assure you that before many months
are past you will know more people than ever you have spoken to in
your life before - men whose names have been household words to you
and nothing else will be calling you 'old chap' and wanting to sell
you horses, and women, who last week would look at you through
lorgnettes as though you were a denizen of some unknown world, will
be lavishing upon you their choicest smiles and whispering in your
ear their 'not at home' afternoon. Oh, it's lucky I'm able to
prepare you a little for it, or you would be taken quite by storm.
He was unmoved. He looked at her with a grim tightening of the
lips.
"I want to ask you this," he said. "What should I be the better
for it all? What use have I for friends who only gather round me
because I am rich? Shouldn't I be better off to have nothing to
do with them, to live my own life, and make my own pleasures?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
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