a time in my life when I could have had a foreign title, but I found it ridiculous, and so refused it.  But in England, in spite of your amusing radicalism the real thing still counts.  It is a valid asset—­a tangible security for one’s money—­from a business point of view.  And Americans or foreigners like myself and my niece, for instance, are securing substantial property and equal return, when we bring large fortunes in our marriage settlements to this country.  What satisfaction comparable to the glory of her English position as Marchioness of Darrowood could Miss Clara D. Woggenheimer have got out of her millions, if she had married one of her own countrymen, or an Italian count?  Yet she gives herself the airs of a benefactress to poor Darrowood and throws her money in his teeth, whereas Darrowood is the benefactor, if there is a case of it either way.  But to me, a sensible business man, the bargain is equal.  You don’t go to an art dealer’s and buy a very valuable Rembrandt for its marketable value, and then, afterwards, jibe at the picture and reproach the art dealer.  Money is no good without position, and here in England you have had such hundreds of years of freedom from invasion, that you have had time, which no other country has had, to perfect your social system.  Let the Radicals and the uninformed of other lands rail as they will, your English aristocracy is the finest body of thinkers and livers in the world.  One hears ever of the black sheep, the few luridly glaring failures, but never of the hundreds of great and noble lives which are England’s strength.”

“By Jove!” said Lord Tancred, “you ought to be in the House of Lords, Francis!  You’d wake them up!”

The financier looked down at his plate; he always lowered his eyes when he felt things.  No one must ever read what was really passing in his soul, and when he felt, it was the more difficult to conceal, he reasoned.

“I am not a snob, my friend,” he said, after a mouthful of salad.  “I have no worship for aristocracy in the abstract; I am a student, a rather careful student of systems and their results, and, incidentally, a breeder of thoroughbred live stock, too, which helps one’s conclusions:  and above all I am an interested watcher of the progress of evolution.”

“You are abominably clever,” said Lord Tancred.

“Think of your uncle, the Duke of Glastonbury,” the financier went on.  “He fulfills his duties in every way, a munificent landlord, and a sound, level-headed politician:  what other country or class could produce such as he?”

“Oh, the Duke’s all right,” his nephew agreed.  “He is a bit hard up like a number of us at times, but he keeps the thing going splendidly, and my cousin Ethelrida helps him.  She is a brick.  But you know her, of course, don’t you think so?”

“The Lady Ethelrida seems to me a very perfect young woman,” Francis Markrute said, examining his claret through the light.  “I wish I knew her better.  We have few occasions of meeting; she does not go out very much into general society, as you know.”