“Poor child, she’s wretched about it. Only yesterday she said to me: ‘Mamma, is it true that you and papa are very common, and that we haven’t anything but a lot of stolen money? One of the girls got mad at me because I was so good-looking and so proud, and taunted me with it.’” “Incredible!” said I, dazed. “She’s horribly unhappy,” Edna went on. “And it cuts her to the heart to be losing all her dearest friends. I did my duty and taught her which girls to cultivate, and she was intimate only with the right sort of New York girls.” “I expect she has been indiscreet,” said I. “They’ve found out why she made friends with them and----” “You will drive me crazy!” cried Edna. “_Can’t_ you understand? All the mothers and the governesses--all the grown people in respectable families teach the children. Those mothers who don’t teach it directly see that it’s taught by the governesses, or else select the proper friends for their little girls and see that they drop any who aren’t proper.” I dropped back in my chair. I was stunned. It seemed to me I had never heard anything quite so infamous in my life. And as I reflected on what she had said I wondered that I had not realized it before. I recalled a hundred significant facts that had come out in talks I had had with men, women, and children in this fashionable world from which we were excluded, yet with which we were in constant and close communication. “The question is, what are _you_ going to do,” proceeded Edna. I shook my head, probably looking as dazed as I felt. “What does that headshake mean?” demanded she. “_You_--taught _Margot_ to be a--a--like those other girls?” said I. “Oh, you fool!” cried Edna. And in excuse for her, please remember I had ever been a dotingly bored slave of hers--as uxorious a husband as you ever saw--and therefore inevitably despised, for women have so little intelligence that they despise a man who loves them and lets them rule. “You fool!” she repeated. “Yes, I brought her up like a lady--taught her to cultivate nice things and nice people. What should I teach her? To associate with common people? To drop back toward where we came from--where _you_ belong?” “Yes, I guess I do,” said I.