"Don't you think so?" she replied distantly, with a note of reproof in her voice. He was too young, too unimportant to cast such aspersion upon this comfortable, good-natured world where there was so much fun to be had. She could not see the possessing image in his mind, the picture of the afternoon--the unsuccessful woman. "There is nothing honorable in wealth," he added, as she turned to examine a delicate landscape. Her eyes flashed defiantly. "It means--" "All this," he moved his hand contemptuously. "Ah, yes, and a lot more," he added, as her lip trembled. "It shows power and ability and thrift and purpose and provides means for generosity and philanthropy. But it rots." "What do you mean?" "Because it turns the people who have it into a class that come to feel themselves divinely appointed. Whereas it is all a gamble, a lucky gamble!" "Not all wealth is a lucky gamble!" she retorted hotly. Sommers paused, discomfited at the personal turn to the thought. "I think the most successful would be the first to admit it," he answered thoughtfully. "I don't understand you," the girl replied more calmly. "I suppose you are a socialist, or something of that sort. I can't understand such matters well enough to argue with you. And I hoped to find you in another mood when I came back; but we fall out always, it seems, over the most trivial matters." "I am afraid I am very blunt," he said contritely. "I came here to find _you_; what do you want me to talk about,--Stewart's engagement to Miss Polot? It was given the chief place in the newspaper this morning." "Sh, sh!" Miss Hitchcock exclaimed cautiously. Little groups were moving in and out of the rooms, and at that moment a pale-faced, slight young man came up to Miss Hitchcock. "May I offer my congratulations?" she said, turning to him with the smile that Sommers's remark had caused still on her lips. The young man simpered, uttered the requisite platitude, and moved away. "Did you congratulate him on the Polot connection or on the girl?" the young doctor asked. "You don't know Estelle Polot! She is _impossible_. But Burton Stewart has got _just_ what he wanted. No one thought that he would do as well as that. You know they are _fearfully_ rich--she can't escape having a number of millions. Don't you think a man of forty is to be congratulated on having what he has been looking for for twenty years?" Miss Hitchcock's neat, nonchalant enunciation gave the picture additional relief. "I don't see how he has the face to show himself. All these people are laughing about it." "It _is_ a bad case, but don't you believe that they are not envying him and praising him. He is a clever man, and he won't let the Polot money go to waste. He has taken the largest purse--the rest were too light." Miss Hitchcock seemed to find infinite resources of mirth in the affair. Other people drifted by them. Several of the younger women stopped and exchanged amused glances with Miss Hitchcock.