“And that would account,” Philip put in, returning abruptly to the previous question, which had been exercising him meanwhile, “for the peculiarly distinguished air of birth and breeding this man has about him.” For Philip respected a duke from the bottom of his heart, and cherished the common Britannic delusion that a man who has been elevated to that highest degree in our barbaric rank-system must acquire at the same time a nobler type of physique and countenance, exactly as a Jew changes his Semitic features for the European shape on conversion and baptism. “Oh, dear, no,” the General answered in his most decided voice. “The Bertrams were never much to look at in any way: and as for the old duke, he was as insignificant a little monster of red-haired ugliness as ever you'd see in a day's march anywhere. If he hadn't been a duke, with a rent-roll of forty odd thousand a year, he'd never have got that beautiful Lady Camilla to consent to marry him. But, bless you, women 'll do anything for the strawberry leaves. It isn't from the Bertrams this man gets his good looks. It isn't from the Bertrams. Old Ingledew's daughters are pretty enough girls. If their aunts were like 'em, it's there your young friend got his air of distinction.” “We never know who's who nowadays,” the Dean murmured softly. Being himself the son of a small Scotch tradesman, brought up in the Free Kirk, and elevated into his present exalted position by the early intervention of a Balliol scholarship and a studentship of Christ Church, he felt at liberty to moralise in such non-committing terms on the gradual decay of aristocratic exclusiveness. “I don't see it much matters what a man's family was,” the General said stoutly, “so long as he's a fine, well-made, soldierly fellow, like this Ingledew body, capable of fighting for his Queen and country. He's an Australian, I suppose. What tall chaps they do send home, to be sure! Those Australians are going to lick us all round the field presently.” “That's the curious part of it,” Philip answered. “Nobody knows what he is. He doesn't even seem to be a British subject. He calls himself an Alien. And he speaks most disrespectfully at times--well, not exactly perhaps of the Queen in person, but at any rate of the monarchy.” “Utterly destitute of any feeling of respect for any power of any sort, human or divine,” the Dean remarked, with clerical severity.