"Oh, mother, call him Tom. He isn't a chauffeur, not when he's in town here."
If anyone but Guy had put her in this situation Mrs. Ansley would have deemed it due to herself to sail from the room. As it was, she endeavored to humor the boy, to keep Tom in his place, and to rescue the dignity which had never yet sat down at table with a servant.
"I'm sure there's no harm in being a chauffeur. I'm the last person in the world to say so, dependent on chauffeurs as I am. Besides, we knew, of course, that some of the young people helping us at the inn-club were studying in colleges, and that they didn't mean to stay in those positions permanently." She grew arch. "But I'm not democratic, Mr. Whitelaw. Guy knows I'm not. It's his way of teasing me. He's perfectly aware that I consider democracy a failure. There never was a greater fallacy than that all men were born free and equal. As to freedom I'm indifferent; but I've never pretended that any Tom, Dick, or Harry was my equal, and I never shall."
"You don't mean this Tom, do you, old lady?"
"Now, Guy! Isn't he a tease, Mr. Whitelaw? But I do believe in equality of opportunity. That seems to me one of the glories of our country. So many of our great men have come from the very humblest origin. And if we can do anything to help them along—with Guy that's an obsession. If it's a fault I say it's a good fault. Better to err on that side, I always think, than to see some one achieve the big thing, and know that you had no share in it when you might have had. That's shepherd's pie, Mr. Whitelaw. We have very simple lunches because Mr. Ansley doesn't always come home, and in any case his meal is his dinner."
She rambled on because Guy was too busy with his food to help her, and Tom too terrified. He was sorry not merely for himself, but for her. Compelled to admit him to breaking bread with her, she must feel as if he had been forced on her in her dressing room. As a matter of fact, he admired the way in which she was carrying it off. Long ago, having divined her as taking her inherited position in Boston as a kind of sanctifying aura, shrinking from unauthorized approach like a sensitive plant from a touch, she reminded him of an anecdote he had somewhere read of Queen Victoria. The Queen was holding a council. Present at it among others was a statesman sitting for the first time as a member of the cabinet. Obliged at a given moment to carry a paper from one side of the table to the other, this gentleman passed back of the Queen's chair, accidentally grazing it with his hand. The Queen shuddered and shrank away. The touching merely of the chair was a violation of majesty. "He won't do," she whispered to the prime minister. He didn't do. He passed not only into political but into social oblivion. Tom recalled the incident as he tried to choke down his shepherd's pie. He was the unhappy statesman. He wouldn't do. Amiable as Mrs. Ansley tried to make herself, he knew how she was suffering. He was suffering himself.
And in on his suffering, to make it worse, bustled Mr. Ansley. Throwing his hat and gloves on a settle in the hall, he shot into the dining room at once. He was a man who shot, sharply, directly, rather than one who walked. Tom stood up.
"Sorry I'm so late, Sunshine—" His eye fell on Tom. "Oh, how-d'ye-do? Seen you before, haven't I? Oh! Oh!" The exclamations were of surprise and a little pain. "Why, you're the young fellow who ran the station car for us."