I express, myself so
badly, but what I mean is--as I make it out--it is, with you, a case of
so near and yet so far. In a great city like London now (great in
generations--centuries--as well as in numbers) you'd just accept the bare
fact and go about your business. Not a ghost of a show, don't you see? Here
you've just missed it, and, the middle class always flowing into the upper
class, you feel that you should get your chance any minute. Ought to have
had it long ago....I can't imagine, for instance, that if my mother had
married the son of my grandfather's partner that I should have wasted much
time wondering why I wasn't asked to the Elizabethan Hail on the hill. Of
course I don't mean there isn't envy enough in the old countries, but it's
more passive...without hope...."
He felt awkward and officious but he was sorry for her and would have
liked to discharge his debt by helping her toward a new point of view, if
possible.
She replied: "That's easy to say, and besides you are a man. My brother,
who is only a clerk in a wholesale house, has been taken up and goes
everywhere. They don't know that I even exist."
"Well, that's their loss," he said gallantly. "Can't you make 'em sit tip,
some way? Women make fortunes sometimes, these days, And they're in about
everything except the Army and Navy. Business? Or haven't you a talent of
some sort? You have--pardon me again, but we have been uncommonly personal
to-night--a strong and individual face.
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