Yes, she would keep out this weak passion! She had tasted its joys, and that memory must last her a lifetime. On the doorstep she encountered Gerard Strobridge just coming out--he raised his hat and said politely that it was an abominably cold day--then he passed on down the steps and so towards Hill Street. And Katherine Bush went up to her room. CHAPTER IX The week of the tableaux had come and gone, and had opened yet another window for Katherine Bush to peep at the world from. She already knew many of the people who came to the luncheons and rehearsals, from their letters, and now she judged of them face to face. She had been in great request to take down innumerable orders, and arrange business details, and had listened and inwardly digested what she heard. Her contempt for some of the company was as great as for Miss Mabel Cawber--she discovered a few with titles and positions who were what she disdainfully dubbed, "Middle class underneath!" "Only that they have been more used to things, they are as paltry as Mabel," she said to herself, and set about, as was her custom, to find out why--and from what families they had sprung--and obtained some satisfaction in the confirmation of her theory of heredity, in discovering that most of these could lay small claim to blueness of blood. The insolence of others she approved of. Many of the American peeresses who were posing as queens, and nuns, and Greek goddesses, she truly admired--they must have been at one time like herself--out to learn--and now were conscious that they had made good. "But I mean to have more repose of manner when I am there," she told herself. Of Sarah Lady Garribardine's sayings and views, she kept a great store in her mind. This was a real aristocrat she felt. A human, faulty, strong woman, incapable of meanness or anything which could lower the flag of her order. She was supremely insolent, too, but then she never did anything which could impair people's respect. She was hard and generous--and acted up to the doctrine that "_noblesse oblige_" and entirely believed in the divine right of kings and of Sarah Lady Garribardine! She had not been a thirteenth century Baron's daughter for nothing! Katherine Bush shared every one of Her Ladyship's views and moulded all her ideals upon them. Each day she was enlarging her vocabulary of words to use--adapting sentences which she had read of fine English to modern requirements, pruning colloquialisms, cultivating pronunciation, polishing her critical faculties. She was perfectly conscious that she had often employed homely phrases in the past, and had not always paid enough attention to grammar in speaking, though for some time she had not used "whatever for," or "of a Sunday," as poor Matilda always did.