He thought himself better than no man. (Different, yes.)
But in regard to women, the women of his class, the class of his father
before him, and of his father's father, he had his ideals, his convictions.
That was all.
II
"In short, he's modern but not too modern. My twentieth-century arguments
were brushed aside as mere fads. And yet there's probably not an important
case tried in any court in either hemisphere that he doesn't read--learn
something from if he can. He takes in the leading newspapers and reviews of
America and Europe and even reads the best modern novels as carefully as he
ever read Thackeray and Dickens--says they are the real social chronicles.
He's a profound student of history, and the history of the present
interests him just as much--he has those Balkans under a microscope; and
collects all the data on every important strike here and elsewhere. And yet
where women are concerned he is a fossil. An American fossil--worst sort.
Some of the young ones are just as bad...I'll have to give in. I can't
break his heart. I suppose I'll marry Bobby."
III
Alice Thorndyke also shook her head. "I'd like to, Alex, but frankly I
haven't the courage. Your friends all stick to you like perfect dears when
you step down and out and set up shop, and are so kind you feel like a
street walker in a house of refuge. But secretly they hate it and they
don't feel toward you in the same way at all.
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