'I don't despise it, and I am very proud in my own way that I do belong to such an old family; but, all the same, it doesn't really matter. There is nothing of any real value except honour and high character, and, of course, genius.'
'When you speak like that, Gladys, and look like that, upon my word, you make a fellow afraid to open his mouth before you,' he said quickly, and there was something very winning in the humility and deference with which he uttered these words.
Gladys was not unmoved by them, and had he followed up his slight advantage, he might have won her on the spot; but at the propitious moment Ellen brought in the tea-tray, and the conversation had to drift into a more general groove.
'To return to my project,' said Gladys, when the maid had gone again, 'I have one of my old acquaintances among the working girls here just now. I expect she will help me a good deal. She was the friend of poor Lizzie Hepburn, whom we have lost so completely. Is it not strange? What do you think can have become of her?'
'I'm sure I couldn't say,' he replied, with all the indifference at his command.
Gladys, busy with the tea-cups, noticed nothing strange in his manner, nor did his answer disappoint her much. She was quite aware that he did not take an absorbing interest in the questions which engrossed so much of her own thought.
'The saddest thing about it is that nobody seems to care anything about what has become of her,' she said, as she took the dainty Wedgewood teapot in her hand. 'Just think if the same thing had happened to your sister or either of your cousins, what a thing it would have been.'
'My dear Gladys, the cases are not parallel. Such things happen every day, and nobody pays the least attention. And besides, such people do not have the same feelings as us.'
Gladys looked at him indignantly.
'You only say so because you know nothing about them,' she said quickly. 'I do assure you the poor have quite as keen feelings as the rich, and some things they feel even more, I think. Why, only to-day I had an instance of it in the girl I have staying here. Her loyalty to Liz is quite beautiful. I wish you would not judge so harshly and hastily.'