The fact was that the money which he had accumulated had been so much greater sum than he had ever hoped for when he was a boy in a Western State--his father went to Iowa in '49--and the changes in his finances had come with such lightning rapidity (half a million made on a tip given him by a friend, followed by other tips more or less profitable) that he loved to pat his pride, so to speak, in speeches like this.
That he had been swept off his feet by the social and financial rush about him was quite natural.

His wife, whose early life had been one long economy, had ambitions to which there was no limit and her escape from her former thraldom had been as sudden and as swift as the upward spring of a loosened balloon.

Then again all the money needed to make the ascension successful was at her disposal.

Hence jewels, laces, and clothes; hence elaborate dinners, the talk of the town: hence teas, receptions, opera parties, week-end parties at their hired country seat on Long Island; dances for Corinne; dinners for Corinne; birthday parties for Corinne; everything, in fact, for Corinne, from manicures to pug dogs and hunters.
His two redeeming qualities were his affection for his wife and his respect for his word.

He had no child of his own, and Corinne, though respectful never showed him any affection.