"Don’t forget that the Barrs are inordinately vain and aggressively jealous of the things they don’t know. This is the fact that makes their ignorance sublime! Take Emily. I got her to talk about herself for a while. She is now one of the head teachers in a public high school. Her devotion to her business is pathetic. She teaches, eats, sleeps—and teaches! Once in a while she shops or sews. These acts complete the cycle of her life from day to day, from year to year. No books, no concerts, no theatres, no travel, no meditation, no self-training, no real companionship with equals or superiors—never one piercing or shattering experience of novelty—nothing that might make the pulse go fast or the heart beat high. ’But how can you teach them anything real, anything about life?’ I maliciously asked her." "’Anything real!’ she sneered. ’I suppose you mean romantic adventures! Well, teaching is real enough for me. I study the science of pedagogy every night of the week. And when I want to learn anything more about life, I read the _Saturday Evening Post_!’ "Yes, Robert; it sounds like a line from _The Old Homestead_. But that’s exactly what she said." "I don’t doubt it," said Robert. "I know the Barrs of Brooklyn. I’ve met them in every part of the United States, and one runs across them even in Europe. Age cannot wither nor custom stale their infinite monotony. As on creation’s day, so they’ll remain till the trump of doom." "Of course, Mother isn’t as stupid as Emily, not by half," said Janet. "Her behavior at parting convinces me that she really does have an inkling of who Mrs. Jerome is and of how my position near this influential lady sends my stock up in the world of cash realities. When I left, she didn’t peck at my cheek as at first. No, she kissed me almost affectionately and said, in a tone so relenting that I’m sure Emily was greatly shocked: ’Now that you’ve found the way back, my child, come and see us again soon.’ And I had always believed that Mother’s moral and religious prejudices were incorruptible—absolutely money-proof, if nothing else in this age was! It was quite a blow to me." "Never mind," rejoined Robert. "We’re all easily taken in by other people’s moral counterfeit. Haven’t you observed that it’s usually a Barr who circulates the Biblical saying that a man cannot serve both God and Mammon? Yet, though too modest to acknowledge it, the Barrs themselves accomplish this miracle daily. It’s precisely the Barrs who, in their heart of hearts, worship these two deities as one." They had now reached the Lorillard tenements. In the dimly lit foyer of the middle house they rested on the settee, quite as in the chummiest days of Barr and Lloyd. "Speaking of Mammon," he resumed, in the most offhand way imaginable, "don’t you think you ought to marry a rich man? Of course I mean your own sort of rich man, not the St. Hilaire sort." Janet gave him a puzzled look.