He still challenged her, his head thrown back. "They probably don't consider themselves inferior to you for that reason. It wouldn't be American if they did."
"And it wouldn't be American if I did; and I don't. They only make me feel so because they feel it so strongly themselves. That's what's not American; and it isn't on my part, but on theirs. They force their sentiment back on me. They make me patronizing whether I will or no."
"And were you patronizing when you went to see Miss Fay?"
To conceal the slightly irritated attentiveness with which he waited for her reply he began to light his motor lamps. Condescension toward Rosie Fay suddenly struck him as offensive, no matter from whom it came.
"I'm sure I don't know," she replied, indifferently. "There was something about her that disconcerted me."
"She's as good as we are," he declared, snapping the little door of one of the lanterns.
"I don't deny that."
"A generation or two ago we were all farming people together. The Willoughbys and the Brands and the Thorleys and the Fays were on an equal footing. They worked for one another and intermarried. The progress of the country has taken some of us and hurled us up, while it has seized others of us and smashed us down; but we should try to get over that when it comes to human intercourse."
"That's what I was doing when I asked her to join our Friendly Society."
"Pff! The deuce you were! I know your friendly societies. Keep those who are down down. Help the humble to be humbler by making them obsequious."