""Other people let this happen," Yasmin tells Henry as the couple mourns their collective future. For a brief moment, they seemed destined to have it all. They'd pass the weeks in a lavish Notting Hill townhouse, which would be not so anonymously featured in House & Garden. (How gauche.) Most weekends, they'd head out to the estate, at least until their sons - I imagined three with three dogs to match - were old enough to ship off to Winchester."
"Not the man's actual morality, of course, because it's simply bad luck to be at the center of a government bailout and then, shortly after, a massive fraud. "I am a good person, and the world shall tell that back to me; otherwise, what am I doing here?" Henry screams at his wife from such close proximity that I could feel his spittle on my face. "You're right," she agrees, which calms him down."
Henry and Yasmin face the collapse of their privileged life amid overlapping consumer-fraud and government-corruption scandals. Yasmin worries about losing material comforts and contemplates dependence on patrons to maintain her accustomed lifestyle. Henry obsesses over public perception of his morality rather than acknowledging ethical failings, insisting that reputation must affirm his goodness. Both characters externalize blame with the phrase "Other people let this happen," demonstrating entitlement and a disconnect between culpability and responsibility. Their reactions illuminate class assumptions about estates, boarding schools, and social standing while exposing fragility and self-righteousness under scandal.
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