‘Oh, where they came from,’ said Lord Rex, disposing of the question jauntily. ‘Labour was the original purchase-money paid for all things. You believe that much, at least, Mrs. Arbuthnot?’
‘If the succession law was swept away we might lose more than we can afford along with it.’ Dinah had heard ultra-revolutionary notions freely aired at times among Gaston’s friends, and, in her one-sided feminine way, had striven, over her cross-stitch, to think them out. ‘I, for one, should not like to see any church or chapel in England turned into a lecture place for these new unbelievers.’
‘Unbelievers! Oh, that is quite a different story. We began by talking about the folly of class differences.’
Dinah was silent awhile. Then: ‘It would be impossible for you and me to think alike on all this,’ she told her companion, with a grave smile. ‘You have seen so much of the world, Lord Rex, perhaps have heard the debates in the Houses of Parliament!’
Lord Rex confessed that this intellectual advantage had befallen him.
‘And I have just watched the lives, the manners of a few more or less troubled men and women. Class differences, as you call them, may be folly. They are the hardest facts I know, the....’
Dinah saved herself, just in time, from adding, ‘the cruellest.’
‘Beauty is the universal leveller,’ observed Lord Rex, with presence of mind. ‘A perfectly beautiful woman would grace the steps of any throne in Europe.’
‘Leave thrones alone, Lord Rex Basire! If the beautiful woman wanted to make others happy, she would have most chance to do so in her own class of life.’