The acquaintance between the house of Henderson and the house of Delancy was not permitted to languish.  Jack had his reasons for it, which may have been financial, and Carmen had her reasons, which were probably purely social.  What was the good of money if it did not bring social position? and what, on the other hand, was the good of social position if you could not use it to get money?

In his recent association with the newly rich, Jack’s twenty thousand a year began to seem small.  In fact, in the lowering of the rate of interest and the shrinkage of securities, it was no longer twenty thousand a year.  This would have been a matter of little consequence in the old order.  His lot was not cast among the poor; most of his relations had solid fortunes, and many of them were millionaires, or what was equivalent to that, before the term was invented.  But they made little display; none at all merely for the purpose of exhibition, or to gain or keep social place.  In this atmosphere in which he was born Jack floated along without effort, with no demand upon him to keep up with a rising standard of living.  Even impecuniosity, though inconvenient, would not have made him lose caste.

All this was changing now.  Since the introduction of a new element even the conservative old millions had begun to feel the stir of uneasiness, and to launch out into extravagance in rivalry with the new millions.  Even with his relations Jack began to feel that he was poor.  It did not spur him to do anything, to follow the example, for instance, of the young fellows from the country, who were throwing themselves into Wall Street with the single purpose of becoming suddenly rich, but it made him uneasy.  And when he was with the Hendersons, or Miss Tavish, whose father, though not newly rich, was one of the most aggressive of speculators, and saw how easily every luxurious desire glided into fulfillment, he felt for the first time in his life the emotion of envy.  It seemed then that only unlimited money could make the world attractive.  Why, even to keep up with the unthinking whims of Miss Tavish would bankrupt him in six months.  That little spread at Wherry’s for the theatre party the other night, though he made light of it to Edith, was almost the price he couldn’t afford to pay for Storm.  He had a grim thought that midwinter flowers made dining as expensive as dying.  Carmen, whom nothing escaped, complimented him on his taste, quite aware that he couldn’t afford it, and, apropos, told him of a lady in Chicago who, hearing that the fashion had changed, wrote on her dinner cards, “No flowers.”  It was only a matter of course for these people to build a new country-house in any spot that fashion for the moment indicated, to equip their yachts for a Mediterranean voyage or for loitering down the Southern coast, to give a ball that was the talk of the town, to make up a special train of luxurious private cars for Mexico or California.  Even at the clubs the talk was about these things and the opportunities for getting them.