At Manhattan's Capitale restaurant, where creamy silk curtains billow from 65-foot ceilings, a top Bear Stearns executive named John Howard was being ribbed by a friend. Howard is a generous host. For his wedding, he hired the ultrachic celebrity chef Jean-Georges Vongerichten to prepare the food. Now he was being told by one of his pals that the party cost more than some of his friends' annual salary. Howard chuckled graciously at the delicately lobbed zinger. Noblesse oblige is the price men and women pay when they've become richer than everyone else at the table.
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