“Oh, nothing,” I replied carelessly. How hope to make a vain woman, obsessed of the notion that she has a profound and mysterious soul when she simply has a fog-bank--how hope to make her see the truth about herself? “It isn’t worth explaining. Only--when you are free and you find some one who appreciates and sympathizes with that soul of yours, be careful to pay him well, and to keep on paying. You can always be flattered and fooled, if you pay for it. But if you don’t pay-- Look out. You may hear the truth.” “What a cynic you are!” she cried. “Thank God, I haven’t your low views of life.” “Keep your views, by all means,” said I. “But don’t forget my advice. You are lovely. You are charming. You dress beautifully and have good taste. But it’s the money, my dear, that causes the excitement about those charms and graces. Hold on to your principal, and spend your income freely but judiciously.” “If I could only convince you that there is something beside money in the world.” “Not for those to whom money is the breath of life,” replied I. When we returned to her hotel she urged me to come in for tea. We went into the greenroom, to listen to the music and to observe the crowds. There was a sprinkling of men, but two thirds were women--women of all classes and conditions, above the working class. Women obviously fashionable as well as rich. Women obviously only rich. Women living off men respectably. Women “trimming” here and there. An army of pretty women--well-cared-for bodies, attractive faces, inviting the various kinds of sensual attack from the subtlest to the frankest. This woman at the next table is rather cheaply dressed, except a gorgeous hat. That woman yonder has contrived to “trim” only a handsome set of furs; it looks grotesque with the rest of the costume. A third has a huge gilt bag as her sole claim to sisterhood with the throng of fair pampered parasites upon husbands, fathers, lovers. A charming and a useless throng. No, not charming, unless a man happens to be in the mood in which he succumbs to the trimming process with pleasure--and then, he would not think them altogether useless. “New York grows more and more like Europe,” said my wife, gazing around with shining eyes, and inhaling the heavily scented atmosphere with dilating nostrils. “More and more like Europe.” “More and more,” replied I. “Especially the women.” “Oh, they’re ahead of the European women,” said she. “So they are,” said I. “Yes--they beat the European women at it. But I’m not sure whether that’s because they are really cleverer, or merely because our men trim more readily.” She regarded me with an expression of mildly interested perplexity, as if she couldn’t imagine what was the “it” I was talking about. “You must admit they are lovely,” said she. “Admit it?” said I. “I proclaim it. If a man’s notion of dinner is only the dessert, he couldn’t do better.”