I laughed. “My father was an English avocat, Cousin; my mother one of the noblesse; I myself lay no claim to any sort of distinction but what myself may procure me.”
She stooped over her plate, slowly extinguishing her cigarette. There was a strange little frown between her eyes, an odd look in her face of some emotion I could have likened to disappointment or chagrin. Perhaps she was regretting now her own calm assumption of superiority. Then, without looking up, she said:—
“But you do not hate the people?”
“I don’t know what you mean by the people,” I said, “or where they begin and where they end. If you are out for intelligence, I know no one more interesting than a skilled mechanic of his hands; and if you are out for folly, a lord can provide you as well as a sweep. Knowledge, my cousin, and knowledge alone passes all distinctions—at least it is the one master-key in my opinion.”
She sat silent a little while; and then she sighed deeply, as if eased of some mental oppression, and rose to her feet, with a smile, verily like ingratiation, on her lips.
“Would it please you,” she said, “if, instead of slighting what I don’t understand, I were to ask you to explain the difficult thing to me?”
It was quite touching—so pretty, indeed, that I was surprised into humility.
“Why, I told you I was no positivist,” I said. “I take it that the sincere among us are all seeking Truth, and what do the thousand different ways, long or short, matter, provided they have that purpose in common? Art and religion should be one there; and for my part I have no more quarrel with an Academician than I have with a ‘Futurist,’ with a Bishop than I have with a Parsee. Only please don’t again talk of short cuts that save trouble. There is more than that, I assure you, in my philosophy.”
“Then you are not really idle?” she said, very sweetly, with her eyebrows raised.
“No, really,” I answered—“if an active brain counts for anything. I am thinking all the time.”