He addressed the ceiling. “The fact is,” he mourned, “that women do not understand business. Even business women don’t. Even you don’t.” Mentally she thanked him for his “even you.” It seemed to her a good place to end the matter for that morning. She still distrusted her manners, and not, she thought, without reason. “Consequently,” she told him quietly, “my opinion cannot matter,” and moved as if to go to her typewriter. He held her to her seat. “That is to beg the question,” he replied, “and we were to have it out.” “But,” she tried, “you have told me that I do not understand business.” “And you did not believe me.” He challenged her, in fact. Well, she must pick up his gage. “I do not understand this about business, Mr. Branstone. What is it about business which makes a man like you content to be a confectioner selling people wares that give them mental indigestion? Business! It’s the name for half the meanness and nine-tenths of the ugliness in the world. You see, women do know something about business to-day. It isn’t their fault that they are not still sitting cosily at home, hugging the old belief that business is a dignified, majestic thing to which only the masculine intellect can rise. It’s your fault, the men’s. You wanted cheap clerks, and you raised the veil so that women have seen business at close quarters, and the only thing they do not understand is how men continued for so long to magnify its low chicane and its infinite humbug into a cult which deceived them.” Sam came to the conclusion that Effie was not perfect. She suffered from hysteria, but she must be answered. “Well,” he said, “you don’t think much of business. But you came into it.” “I needed money,” she defended that. “So did I,” he said dryly. “We’re birds of a feather.” “You hate it, too?” she asked hopefully. “Honestly,” he said, “I like it. But,” he went on with mischief in his eye, “I can tell you something that will please you. You dislike the novel series. You think they degrade. You don’t think the Classics degrade?” “No.” “I would much rather that the Classics sold largely than the novels.” “Why?” She was eager now. “Because they are great literature?” “No. That would be being sentimental about business, and it can’t be done. Because they are not copyright, and it saves book-keeping.” He grinned at her discomfiture. “Business,” he defined, “is money-getting.” He was feeling tremendously pleased with himself, her master in argument. He gave her rope indulgently, for she was Effie; then crushed her utterly, for he was Sam. “Isn’t it better,” she asked, “to win a little money decently than to gain a great deal by trading in poison? Whether you know it or not, these books are poisonous.” “I don’t know it,” he said brusquely. “They give pleasure.”