I was pleased to discover that my efforts had not been wasted. She
had been thinking, and she had even found time, in the midst of her
distractions, to read part of a book. In the course of our talks I
had mentioned Veblen, and she had been reading snatches of his work
on the Leisure Class, and I was surprised, and not a little amused,
to observe her reaction to it.
When I talked about wages and hours of labour, I was dealing with
things that were remote from her, and difficult to make real; but
Veblen's theme, the idle rich, and the arts and graces whereby they
demonstrate their power, was the stuff of which her life was made.
The subtleties of social ostentation, the minute distinctions
between the newly-rich and the anciently-rich, the solemn
certainties of the latter and the quivering anxieties of the
former--all those were things which Sylvia knew as a bird knows the
way of the wind. To see the details of them analysed in learned,
scientific fashion, explained with great mouthfuls of words which
one had to look up in the dictionary--that was surely a new
discovery in the book-world! "Conspicuous leisure!" "Vicarious
consumption of goods!" "Oh, de-ah me, how que-ah!" exclaimed Sylvia.
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