Some damage to dustcover, tear on back cover and fading to color of dustcover's spine. Vintage 1947 book. Chad, a hardworking young architecture student from a working class background, learns valuable life lessons while simultaneously financially supporting himself and trying to avoid a beautiful young woman with whom he eventually falls in love. Julie was raised in great wealth, until the day her father killed himself because of his financial losses, and was left with less than nothing. Chad, raised in a middle class home with some very defined values, takes Julie to task for walking away from the debt. She then explains to him, "You'd be surprised how little high-sounding phrases help" when one is in a desperate situation. As Chad learns more and more about Julie's life before meeting him, he discovers that she lived in a different kind of a spiritual poverty. Isolated, her mother had abandoned them long ago, and the only activities in their lives were shallow ones that revolved around spending money. Julie had never learned to "do" anything; she couldn't cook, clean, even carry on a conversation with anyone other than an extremely wealthy peer. She knew French, and ballroom dancing, but had no practical skills, and no sense of her own value when the money and was stripped away. Her father suffered this same lack of self-worth, hence his suicide. For Chad, a work ethic could save anyone. Anyone who was poor must have been so by choice. He was working his way through architecture school and patting himself on the back for it. When he falls in love with Julie, he realizes that marrying and raising a family with her is of more "real" value than any material goal he had previously set for himself.