“But it would take all one’s time and money.”
“Even so. It restores your self-respect to feel perfectly groomed and therefore perfectly self-possessed. It makes the office respect you.”
“I know. I hate the grubbiness of snipe-life—sometimes.”
“Only sometimes?”
“Well, I forget about it. If I didn’t I should go mad of grit and dust.”
“We are mad of grit and dust. That’s why we think it’s time to do something.”
“H’m.”
“You really like the Orlys, don’t you?”
“You can’t like everybody at once. You have to choose. That’s the trouble. If you are liking one set of people very much you get out of touch with the others.”
“You have so many sets of people.”
“I haven’t. I hardly know anybody.”
“You have hosts of friends.”
“I haven’t. In the way you mean. I expect I give you wrong impressions.”
“Well I think you’ve a capacity—Don’t you think she has a capacity—von Bohlen?”
“She has some very nice friends and some extraordinary ones.”