“I'm quite sure of that, madam. The sort of address Madame de Renneville boasts was not a quality that your life in Ireland was likely to make you familiar with.”
“I beg you to remember, my Lord,” said she, angrily, “that all my experiences of the world have not been derived from that side of the Channel.”
“I 'm cruel enough to say, madam, that I wish they had! There is nothing so difficult as unlearning.”
“I wish, my Lord—I heartily wish—that you had made this discovery earlier.”
“Madam,” said he, slowly, and with much solemnity of manner, “I owe it to each of us to own that I had made what you are pleased to call this 'discovery' while there was yet time to obviate its consequences. My very great admiration had not blinded me as to certain peculiarities, let me call them, of manner; and if my vanity induced me to believe that I should be able to correct them, it is my only error.”
“I protest, my Lord, if my temper sustain me under such insult as this, I think I might be acquitted of ill breeding.”
“I live in the hope, madam, that such a charge would be impossible.”
“I suppose you mean,” said she, with a sneering smile, “when I have taken more lessons—when I have completed the course of instruction you so courteously began with me yesterday?”
“Precisely, madam, precisely. There are no heaven-born courtiers. The graces of manner are as much matter of acquirement as are the notes of music. A delicate organization has the same disadvantage in the one case that a fine ear has in the other. It substitutes an aptitude for what ought to be pure acquirement. The people who are naturally well mannered are like the people who sing by ear; and I need not say what inflictions are both.”
“And you really think, my Lord, that I may yet be able to enter a room and leave it with becoming grace and dignity.”