“So many of the American men in society over here are common,” proceeded she, “and even those who aren’t so very common somehow seem so. They are down on their knees before titles, and they act—like servants. Even Mr. Howard— He oughtn’t to show his feelings so plainly. Of course we all feel impressed and honored by being taken up by real titled people of old families, but it’s such bad form to show, and it interferes with getting on. When I’m talking to Lord Crossley about that drawing-room, I act as if it were nothing.”
“I see you are being well educated,” said I, laughing.
“Oh, yes. Mamma and I have worked. We’ve not had an idle moment.”
“I believe you,” said I.
“You will stay, papa—won’t you?”
I shook my head. But it was no longer the positive gesture. My besetting sin, my good nature, had possession of me. Remember, it was after dinner, and my beautiful daughter was caressing my cheek and was pleading in a voice whose modulations had been cultivated by the best masters in Paris.
“But I don’t want people to think I was deceiving them about my papa.”
“I’m willing to be exhibited to a select few in the next two or three days,” I conceded. “They will tell the others.”
And with that they had to be content. In the faint hope of inducing me to change my mind, Edna—the devoid of the sense of humor—took me to a tailor’s and had me shown pictures and models of the court costume I would wear. But I remained firm. A sense of humor would have warned her that a person of my sort would have an aversion to liveries of every kind, to any costume that stamps a man as one of a class. I am perhaps foolishly jealous of my own individuality. But I cannot help it. A king in his robes, a general in his uniform—except in battle where it’s as necessary and useful as night shirt or pajamas in bed—any sort of livery seems pitiful and contemptible to me. I will wear the distinguishing dress of the human race and the male sex, but further than that classification I refuse to move. Also, what business had I, citizen of a democracy whose chief idea is the barbarism and silliness of aristocracy—what business had I going to see a king and a queen? I should have felt that I was aiding them in the triumph of dragging democracy at their chariot wheels. No, I would not go to levees and drawing-rooms. You may say I showed myself an absurd extremist. Well, perhaps so. But, as it seems to be necessary to go to one extreme or the other, I prefer the extreme of exaggerated and vainglorious self-respect.
“The king and queen are no doubt nice people,” said I to Margot. “But if I meet them, it must be on terms of equality—and for some purpose less inane than exchanging a few set phrases.”