Trevillian, fortunately, was not looking for malice from one so small and gray and feminine, and he went on hotly: "I wonder what this rabble thinks they could do with this country without us--without the leadership of people like ourselves." "They'll soon find out, it seems," answered Mrs. Grey. "The trouble with this country," continued Trevillian, "is the growing contempt for law and order. No one is brought up to respect the state--the Government. What would the poor do without the ruling class? Do you realize that the hospitals and charitable institutions of this country would have to close? And what would happen then, I should like to know?" "They would be run by the state, of course," said Miss Evington, who knew her way about sociology. "The state!" cried Trevillian. "Do you mean government ownership? Well, let me tell you that the state is about the most inefficient, the most corrupt--" "I thought we ought to respect it," said Miss Evington. Mrs. Grey laughed out loud. "Ah, Mr. Torby," she said, "women ought not to attempt argument, ought they?" Trevillian felt soothed by this remark. "I own," he replied, "that I do not think a woman appears at her best in argument." And he never understood why it was that he seemed to have made a very good joke. They now began to go in to dinner--the dining-room was safely situated across the back of the house. The table was magnificent. Gold vases of pink and white flowers alternated down its length with gold bowls of yellow and orange fruit. Tall wineglasses of crystal engraved in gold stood like little groves at each plate. The Torbys' engraved glass was famous. "But I thought," Lady Cecilia was heard saying to her host, who was of course taking her in to dinner, "I thought there were no classes in the United States?" Mr. Torby was shocked that Lady Cecilia, who had had so many opportunities, like the present, for observing, should make such a mistake. "Oh," he said, "I should hardly say that. I yield to none in my belief in the principles of democracy--from the political point of view; but socially, my dear Lady Cecilia, every country in the world has a class--how shall I define it--" He succeeded in defining it so that it included himself and excluded most of the rest of the world. Aristocracy nowadays, he thought, consisted in having had for two or three generations the advantages of a large fortune with all the cultivation and refinement and responsibility that it brings. A college president, who was present, was equally sure that it was all a question of education. Mr. McFarlane, the head of a large bank, thought it meant the group of men in any country who control the financial destinies--and therefore all the destinies--of a country. Mrs. Grey did not find it worth while to define anything, but sat thinking: "It's being ladies and gentlemen, if they only knew it."