Mortimer Dwight, Mrs.
Francis Leslie Bascom and Miss Aileen Livingston Lawton.
His reasons for coming to Ballinger House--which even he knew was
inaccessible to the common herd--were separate and tabulated. Alexina had
fascinated him against his best class principles; but he not only jumped at
the chance of meeting her again, he was excessively curious to understand a
woman of her class, to watch her in different moods and situations. He was
equally curious to meet other women of the same breed; he had never brushed
their skirts before, but he had often stood and gazed at them hungrily as
they passed in their limousines or driving their smart little electric
cars.
He was also curious to see several of those "interiors" he had read so much
about, and hoped his pupils would meet in turn at their different homes. He
was a sincere and honest socialist, was Mr. Kirkpatrick, and he had a good
healthy class-consciousness and class-hatred. But he also had a large
measure of intelligent curiosity. He had never expected to have the
opportunity to gratify it in respect to "bourgeois" inner circles, and when
it came he had only hesitated long enough to search his soul and assure
himself that he was in no danger of growing compliant and soft. Moreover he
might possibly make converts, and in any case it was not a bad way, society
being still what it was, of turning an honest penny.
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