Edna and Margot seemed to feel that they had, on the whole, a presentable specimen of male relative to exhibit; for they made the most of the four days I gave them. Through Hilda Armitage, now Lady Blankenship, and much freshened up by the more congenial atmosphere, they had got in with the set that is the least easy of access to Americans—though, of course, it is not actually difficult for any American with plenty of money and a willingness to spend and good guidance in how to spend. And I must admit I enjoyed myself in those four days. The women were, for the most part, rather slow, though I recall two who had real intelligence, and I don’t think there was a single one quite so devoid of knowledge of important subjects as our boasted “bright” American women. The men were distinctly attractive. They had information, they had breadth—the thing the upper-class men of America often lack. Also, they were entirely free from that ill-at-easeness about their own and their neighbor’s position in society which makes the American upper classes tiresome and ridiculous.
It amused me to observe the Americans in this environment. Both our women and our men seemed uneasy, small, pinched. You could distinguish the American man instantly by his pinched, tight expression of an upper servant out for a holiday. I could feel the same thing in our women, but I doubt not their looks and dress and vivacity concealed it from the Englishmen. Anyhow, women are used to being nothing in themselves, to taking rank and form from their surroundings. While with us it seems to be true that the women are wholly responsible for social position with all its nonsense, the deeper truth is that they owe everything to the possessions of their fathers or husbands. Without that backing they would be nothing. Everything must ultimately rest upon a substantiality. In themselves, unsupported, the women’s swollen pretensions would vanish into thin air.
Lord Crossley was to have dined with us my first evening in London, but was prevented by suddenly arising business in the country. Next day he came to lunch, and I at once saw that he was after Margot hammer and tongs. I discovered it not by the way he treated her, but by his attitude toward her mother and me. He seemed a thoroughly satisfactory young man in every way, and I especially liked his frankness and simplicity. Edna had devoted a large part of a long sight-seeing tour with me to an account of his grandeur in the British aristocracy. Having had experience at that time of the American brand of aristocracy only, I was ignorant of the European kinds that have the aristocratic instinct in the most acute form—the ingrowing form. I know now that our own sort, unpleasant and unsightly though it is, cannot compare in malignance, in littleness and meanness of soul with the European sort. Just as the noisy blowhard is a modest fellow and harmless, and on acquaintance lovable in comparison with the silent, brooding egotist, just so is the American aristocrat in comparison with the European. An American aristocrat has been known to forget himself and be human. I recall no instance of that sort in an European born and bred to the notion that his flesh and blood are of a subtler material than the flesh and blood of most men. However, as I was saying, at the time of my first visit to Europe I knew nothing of these matters, and Lord Crossley seemed to me a simple, ingenuous young man, most attractively boyish for his years.
“That chap wants to marry Margot,” said I to Edna when we were alone later in the afternoon.
“I think so,” said she. “Several young men wish to marry her. But she is in no hurry. She’s not nineteen yet, and she would like a duke.”
“To be sure,” said I. “But she may not be able to love a duke.”
“I never heard of a girl who wouldn’t love a duke if she got the chance,” said Edna. “There are only five—English dukes, I mean—who are eligible. Margot has met three of them—and one, the Duke of Brestwell, has taken quite a fancy to her.” Carelessly, but with nervous anxiety underneath, “You wouldn’t have any objection?”
“I? Why?”
“Oh—you are so—so peculiar in some ways.”
“Anyone who pleases Margot will suit me,” said I.