"Now, don't think I am jealous of her, for I am not. She is the most conspicuous one in this suffrage movement on account of the awful things she does, but I don't care to associate with any person who is identified with this crusade. Neither does my mother, nor any of our social set, and of course I would like you to feel the same way." "But suppose I do not feel that way. Suppose my sympathies are with them and my profession as well as my political predilections should carry me among them?" he asked earnestly. "Oh, Jack, what has come over you that you are so plebeian! Can't you see how these women are cheapening New York society, associating with workingmen and shop girls!" "But that is what they should do in a democracy, and I am sure I never saw better-looking women in my life than these same busy suffragists. They have something to do, and are not dying of _ennui_ or listlessness," he answered. "Their stock argument," she answered, "but whoever heard of an aristocracy based on such things as these women engage in. Promise me, Jack, that you will have nothing to do with any of them." "You are unduly wrought up to-night," he answered, "but I will promise you that I shall do nothing to cause you unnecessary annoyance. You must not be too captious, dear, and remember that I go Thursday night." She started to protest, but he drowned the effort in a shower of caresses and bade her goodnight. Each of them, in the silence of their own apartments, thought long and earnestly of this interview. Leonora Kimball had been taught to believe that the chief badges of an aristocracy were complete idleness of the women, and the possession of enough wealth to support such idleness. It mattered not how mentally insipid or morally opaque or physically inane such women might be, the true test of being fitted for the purple was whether or not they had ever done any useful work, and whether or not they had money enough so that the other members of their set might feel assured that they never would do any useful work. An aristocracy of trained brains or unselfish culture were meaningless terms to her.