"Really," said Sir Basil, all courteous interest.
"The Claremonts, you know," said Mrs. Potts, modestly, yet firmly, too. "My father was in direct descent; we have it all worked out in our family tree."
"Oh, really," said Sir Basil again.
"I've no doubt," said Mrs. Potts, "that your forebears and mine, Sir Basil, were friends and comrades in the spacious times of good Queen Bess."
Imogen, at this, glanced swiftly at her mother; but she caught no trace of wavering on that mild countenance.
"Oh, well, no," Sir Basil answered. "My people were very little country squires in those days; we didn't have much to do with the Dukes of Claremont. We only began to go up, you see, a good bit after you were on the top."
Imogen fixed a calm but a very cold eye upon Mrs. Potts. She had heard of the Dukes of Claremont for many years; so had everybody who knew Mrs. Potts; they were an innocent, an ingrained illusion of the good lady's, but to-day they seemed less innocent and more irritating than usual. Imogen felt that she could have boxed Mrs. Potts's silly ears. In Sir Basil's pleasant disclaimers, too, there was an echo of Miss Bocock's matter-of-fact acknowledgments that seemed to set them both leagues away from the Pottses and to make their likeness greater than their difference.
"Well, of course," Mrs. Potts was going on, her pince-nez and all her small features mingled, as it were, in the vividest glitter, "for me, I confess, it's blood, above all and beyond all, that counts; and you and I, Sir Basil, know that it is in the squirearchy that some of the best blood in England is found. We don't recognize an aristocracy in our country, Sir Basil, but, though not recognized, it rules,—blood must rule; one often, in a democracy, feels that as one's problem."
"It's only through service that it rules," Mr. Potts suddenly ejaculated from where he sat doubled on the steps looking with a gloomy gaze into the distance. "Service; service—that's our watchword. Lend a hand."
Imogen saw a latent boredom piercing Sir Basil's affability. Great truths uttered by some lips might be made to seem very unefficacious. She proposed to him that she should show him the wonderful display of mountain-laurel that grew higher up among the pine-woods. He rose with alacrity, but Mrs. Potts rose too. Imogen could hardly control her vexation when, nipping the crumbs from her lap and smoothing the folds at her waist, she declared that she was just in the humor for a walk and must see the laurel with them.