He interrupted with an impatient, “Didn’t I try? But it was hopeless. To succeed in this day, I’d have had to take the children away off into the woods, with the chances that even there the servants I’d be compelled to have would spoil them--would keep them reminded of the rotten snobbishness they’ve been taught.” He laughed at me with mocking irony. “You have a daughter,” said he. “What about her?” “I was thinking of your boy,” said I. He frowned and looked away. After a long pause--“Hopeless--hopeless,” said he. “Believe me--hopeless. The boy is like her. No, I’ll have to begin all over again.” I gave an inquiring look. “Marry again,” explained he. “Another sort of woman, and keep her and her children away from this world of ours. I’d like to try the experiment. But--” He laughed apologetically. “I’m afraid I love the city and its amusements too well. I’m not as determined nor as ardent as I once was. What does it matter, anyway? So long as we are comfortable and well amused, why should we bother?” After a silence, “Another mistake I made--the initial mistake--was in giving her a fortune. She is almost as well fixed as I am. Don’t make that mistake, Godfrey.” “I’ve already done it,” said I. “And I shall never be sorry that I did. I gave my wife the first large sum I made, and I’ve added to it from time to time. I wanted her and Margot to be safe, no matter what happened to me.” “A mistake,” he said. “A sad mistake. I know how you felt. I felt the same way. But there’s something worse than the more or less sentimental aversion to being loved and considered merely for the money they can get out of you and can’t get without you.” “Nothing worse,” I declared. “Yes,” he replied. “It’s worse to give a foolish woman the power to make a fool of herself, of her children, and of you.” “That is bad, I’ll admit,” said I. “But the other is worse--at least to me.” “You’d refuse to make a child behave itself, through the selfish fear that it would hate you for doing so.” I laughed. “You know my weakness, I see,” said I. “There’s the foolish American husband and father. No wonder all the classes that ought to be leaders in development and civilization are leaders only in luxury and folly.” “Oh, let them have a good time--what they call a good time,” said I. “As you said a moment ago, it doesn’t matter.” “If it only were a good time--to be ignorant and snobbish and lazy, to drive instead of walking, to eat and drink instead of thinking, to be waited upon instead of getting the education and the happiness that come from serving others. Don’t laugh at me. After all, while you and I--all our sort of men--are greedy, selfish grabbers, making thousands work for us, still we do build up big enterprises, we do set things to moving, and we do teach men the discipline of regular work by forcing them to work for us at more or less useful things.”