England -- Social life and customs -- 20th century -- Fiction; Love stories; Social classes -- England -- Fiction; Young women -- Fiction
"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 glass
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 class
and hers!
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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