“Easily, if you’ve got real power,” rejoined she. “It’s been done often, I’ve found out lately. At least half the leaders in society got in originally by compelling it. But you, going round among men intimately--you must know it--must have known all along. If you’d been the right sort of man I’d not have to humiliate myself by asking you--by saying these dreadful things.” Her eyes were flashing and her bosom was heaving. “Women have hated men for less. But I must bear my cross. You insist on degrading me. Very well. I’ll let myself be degraded. I’ll say the things a decent man would not ask a woman to say----” “Edna, darling,” I pleaded. “Honestly, I don’t understand. You’ll have to tell me. And it’s not degrading. We have no secrets from each other. We who love each other can say anything to each other--anything. What do you wish me to do?” “Use your power over the men. Frighten them into ordering their wives to invite us and to accept our invitations. You do business with a lot of the men, don’t you?” “Yes,” said I. “You can benefit or injure them, as you please, can’t you?--can take money away from them--can put them in the way of making it?” “Yes,” said I; “to a certain extent.” “And how do you use this power?” “In building up great enterprises. I am founding a city just now, for instance, where there was nothing but a swamp beside a lake, and----” “In making more and more money for yourself,” she cut in, “you think only of yourself.” “And you--what do _you_ think of?” said I. “Not of myself,” cried she indignantly. “Never of myself. Of Margot. Of you. Of the family. I am working to build _us_ up--to make _us_ somebody and not mere low money grubbers.” I did not see it from her point of view. But I was not inclined to aggravate her excitement and anger. “Why shouldn’t you use your powers for some unselfish purpose?” she went on. “Why not try to have higher ambition?” I observed her narrowly. She was sincere. “I want you to help me--for Margot’s sake, for your own sake,” she went on in a kind of exaltation. “Margot is coming on. She’ll be out in less than three years. We’ve got to make a position for her.” “I thought, up there at Miss Ryper’s she was----” “That shows how little interest you take!” cried Edna. “Don’t you know what is happening? Why, already the fashionable girls at her school are beginning to shy off from her----” “Don’t be absurd!” laughed I. “That simply could not be. She’s lovely, sweet, attractive in every way. Any girls anywhere would be proud to have her as a friend.” “How _can_ you be so ignorant of the world!” cried Edna in a frenzy of exasperation. “Oh, you’ll drive me mad with your stupidity! Can’t you realize how _low_ fashionable people are. The girls who were her friends so long as they were all mere children are now taking a positive delight in snubbing her, because she’s so pretty and will be an heiress. It gives them a sense of power to treat her as an inferior, to make her suffer.”