"Oh, no, not that! It'd never do. It's true enough I got to feeling self-conscious about my rough clothes and boots, especially after I met that dude brother of yours one day in the hall and he gave me a once-over that made me feel like a tramp." "Oh! ... But he was snubbed himself not so very long ago, and I suppose it gives him a certain pleasure to snub some one else, I am ashamed of him.... But tell me, don't you like them rather better than you expected? Find them rather a better sort? You must see that there is practically no leisure class as far as the men are concerned--" "They have time enough to go chicken chasing--" "Well, aside from that? At least they do work. And the younger women? You knew before that they were frivolous because they had too much money and too few responsibilities. Many of the older women have a serious and useful side, even if they do waste an unholy amount of time at cards." "Well, if you ask me, their manners, when they remember to use 'em, are better than I expected. Only that Miss Thorndyke is cold and haughty, but perhaps that's because she's poor (for her), or is covering up something, or is just plain stupid.... Mrs. Dwight's manners are always perfect. She's my idea of a lady--just! And in the new system there'll be a long sight more ladies than is possible now, only no aristocrats.... Yes, they're decent enough considering they're rotten poisoned by money and thinkin' themselves better'n the mass; and I like their affection for one another. But they could be all that in the socialist state and more too. They'd have to cut out drink and gambling, and a few other diversions some of 'em'll drift into, if one or two of 'em haven't already--just through being bored to death." "Do you honestly think socialism means universal virtue?" "No, I don't. I'm no such greenhorn; though there's some that does, or pretends to.... But I mean there'd be no _drifting_ into vice like there is now, no indulgence of any old weakness because temptation was always following them about or just round the corner. That's the trouble now.... But in the most perfect state some would be watching out for their chance, just because the old Adam was too strong in spite of the fact that all the old reminders had disappeared." "More likely they'd all murder one another because they were some ten thousand times more bored than that poor little group whose brains you are addling." "I don't like to hear you talk like that, Miss Gora. You ought to give that pen of yours to socialism. There would be all the revenge you could want--and it's what you're entitled to. Then I could call you Comrade Gora." "Call me Comarade by all means if it hurts you to say Miss to a fellow worker.... You admit then that envy of a society you were not born into and which refuses to acknowledge you as an equal, is the secret of your desire to pull it down?"