“I’m willing to be exhibited to a select few in the next two or three days,” I conceded. “They will tell the others.” And with that they had to be content. In the faint hope of inducing me to change my mind, Edna--the devoid of the sense of humor--took me to a tailor’s and had me shown pictures and models of the court costume I would wear. But I remained firm. A sense of humor would have warned her that a person of my sort would have an aversion to liveries of every kind, to any costume that stamps a man as one of a class. I am perhaps foolishly jealous of my own individuality. But I cannot help it. A king in his robes, a general in his uniform--except in battle where it’s as necessary and useful as night shirt or pajamas in bed--any sort of livery seems pitiful and contemptible to me. I will wear the distinguishing dress of the human race and the male sex, but further than that classification I refuse to move. Also, what business had I, citizen of a democracy whose chief idea is the barbarism and silliness of aristocracy--what business had I going to see a king and a queen? I should have felt that I was aiding them in the triumph of dragging democracy at their chariot wheels. No, I would not go to levees and drawing-rooms. You may say I showed myself an absurd extremist. Well, perhaps so. But, as it seems to be necessary to go to one extreme or the other, I prefer the extreme of exaggerated and vainglorious self-respect. “The king and queen are no doubt nice people,” said I to Margot. “But if I meet them, it must be on terms of equality--and for some purpose less inane than exchanging a few set phrases.” Edna and Margot seemed to feel that they had, on the whole, a presentable specimen of male relative to exhibit; for they made the most of the four days I gave them. Through Hilda Armitage, now Lady Blankenship, and much freshened up by the more congenial atmosphere, they had got in with the set that is the least easy of access to Americans--though, of course, it is not actually difficult for any American with plenty of money and a willingness to spend and good guidance in how to spend. And I must admit I enjoyed myself in those four days. The women were, for the most part, rather slow, though I recall two who had real intelligence, and I don’t think there was a single one quite so devoid of knowledge of important subjects as our boasted “bright” American women. The men were distinctly attractive. They had information, they had breadth--the thing the upper-class men of America often lack. Also, they were entirely free from that ill-at-easeness about their own and their neighbor’s position in society which makes the American upper classes tiresome and ridiculous.