Lionel was often out of the way. He aspired to lead the life of a very smart young man indeed. He confided to me that it was somewhat of a mystery to him that in all the years he had been about town he had only lately succeeded in getting into the particular set he desired to mix with. He was a member of one or two extremely select clubs, although the absolute holy of holies he could not enter, despite the fact that Sir Anthony was still as far off Sibella as he had ever been—at least, such was my impression. The infatuated baronet was prepared to thrust Lionel down the throats of his most intimate circle. Sir Anthony might have a curious pronunciation of the Queen’s English, which dispensed with final “g’s,” and clipped the majority of words in an altogether surprising manner; he might wear checks which to a chess enthusiast would at once have suggested a problem; he might have a partiality for spats and white bowlers; he might even swear occasionally in the presence of women, but in spite of all these things he remained undeniably a gentleman; for being a gentleman has nothing to do with grammar or morals. In time a street urchin may acquire the one, and a Nonconformist parson may have the other, but the fact of being a gentleman resides in the individual’s consciousness. Therefore it is useless for those to whom public companies and cheeses and cheap teas have stood for the goose with the golden eggs to watch my lord’s peculiarities or the characteristics of even plain John Brown, gentleman. They never can be gentlemen. Their sons may. Their sons’ sons surely will be, but they themselves will feel conscious that they are not the right article till their dying day. They may be the best of fellows, the most upright of men, the most polished of speakers, but they will hear it whispered behind their backs every now and then that “Hang it all, the man’s not a gentleman, you know!” And I am convinced that had I, Israel Rank, been completely a gentleman on both sides I could never have penned the above snobbish paragraph. It is the reticence of gentlemen, and their lack of statement of claim, that keeps up all the barriers and holds democracy at bay. Lionel Holland might have felt more secure if his father had sent him to Eton and Oxford, which he could well have afforded to do, but to old Mr. Holland these were almost mythical places. Lionel himself spoke with characteristic unkindness of his father for not having done so. He was, fortunately for himself, impervious to many slights and snubs which would have driven a more self-respecting youth back into his own circle.