Part 3 (2/2)

”Because her father was a solicitor, and she has never done a stroke of work in her life?” Katherine smiled again--it made Matilda feel uncomfortable.

”Mabel is a perfect lady,” she affirmed indignantly.

”I will be able to tell you about that in a year's time, I expect,”

Katherine said, reflectively. ”At present, I am not experienced enough to say, but I strongly feel that she is not. You see, Tild, you get your ideas of things from the trash you read--and from the ridiculous nonsense Fred and Albert talk after they come home from those meetings at the National Brotherhood Club--fool's stuff about the equality of all men----”

”Of course we are all equal!” broke in Matilda, still ruffled.

Katherine Bush smiled again. ”Well, I wish you could see the difference between Fred and Bert and those gentlemen I see through the gla.s.s screen! They have all got eyes and noses and legs and arms in common, but everything else is different, and if you knew anything about evolution, you'd understand why.”

”Should I!” indignantly.

”Yes. It is the something inside the head, something in the ideas, produced by hundreds of years of different environment and a wider point of view--and it is immensely in the little customs and manners of speech and action. If you had ever seen and spoken to a real gentleman, Tild, you would grasp it.”

Matilda was quite unmollified and on the defensive.

”You can't have two more honourable, straightforward young fellows than our brothers in no family in England, and I expect lots of your gents borrowing money are as crooked as can be!”

Katherine became contemplative.

”Probably--the thing I mean does not lie in moral qualities--I suppose it ought to--but it doesn't--We had a real sharp last week, and to look at and to hear him talk he was a perfect gentleman, with refined and easy manners; he would never have done anything in bad taste like Fred and Bert often do.”

”Bad taste!” snorted Matilda.

”Yes--we all do. No gentleman ever tells people in words that he is one--Fred and Bert say it once a week, at least. They lay the greatest stress on it. No real gentlemen get huffy and touchy; they are too sure of themselves and do not pretend anything, they are quite natural and you take them as they are. They don't do one thing at home at ease, and another when they are dressed up, and they aren't a bit ashamed of knowing anyone. Fred does not speak to Ernie Gibbs when he is out with Mabel, although they were at school together!”

”Ernie Gibbs! Why, Kitten, he is only a foreman in the Bindon Gas Works!

Of course not! Mabel _would_ take on!”

Matilda thought her sister was being too stupid!

”Yes, I am sure she would--that is just it----”

”And quite right, too!”

Katherine shrugged her shoulders. There was not much use in arguing with Matilda, she felt, Matilda who had never thought out any problem for herself in her life--Matilda who had not the privilege of knowing any attractive Lord Algys!--and who therefore could not have grasped the immeasurable gulf that she, Katherine, had found lay between his cla.s.s and hers!

”They say Fred is a capable auctioneer because father and grandfather were--you hear people saying 'it is in the blood'--Well, why is it, Tild?--Because heredity counts just as it does in animals, of course. So why, if a man's father and grandfather, and much further back still, have been gentlemen commanding their inferiors, and fulfilling the duties of their station, should not the traits which mean that show as plainly as the auctioneer traits show in Fred----?”

Matilda had no answer ready, she felt resentful; but words did not come, so Katherine went on:

”You can't jump straight to things; they either have to come by instinct through a long line of forebears, or you have to have intelligence enough to make yourself acquire the outward signs of them, through watching and learning from those who you can see for yourself have what you want.”

Matilda called for another cup of cocoa--she disliked these views of Katherine's.

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