Essay: A Small Moral Quandary

"Let's meet for lunch at 1 o'clock at the Millennium Club," the distinguished person said.

"O.K.," the essayist said.

The essayist doesn't much like the Millennium Club and has not been there for quite a while. The club's food is generally overcooked and its atmosphere musty -- all leather armchairs and dark green table lamps and bound sets of people like Bulwer-Lytton. But there are compensations of a sort. It is always faintly possible that one might meet some celebrated old walrus.

But the essayist faced a small dilemma: Is it really socially acceptable to go to lunch at places like...