She made an impressive gesture—she looked like a beautiful young empress. “Let’s not cant,” said she. “Those are the high things of life. Ask any person you meet in America—young or old, high or low—ask him which he’d rather be—a prince, duke, marquis, or a saint, scientist, statesman. What would he answer?”
I laughed. “That he’d rather be a millionaire,” said I.
“A millionaire with a title—with established social position at the very top—that couldn’t be taken away. That’s the truth, Godfrey.”
“I’ll not contradict you,” said I.
“And,” she went on, “I’ve brought up our daughter so that she could realize the highest ambition within our reach. Haven’t I brought her up well?”
“Perfectly, for the purpose,” said I.
“When we came over here, I examined the ground carefully. I was at first inclined to one of the big Continental titles. They are much older, much more high sounding than the English titles—and so far as birth goes they mean something, while the English titles mean really nothing at all. The English aristocracy isn’t an aristocracy of birth.”
“That’s, no doubt, the reason why it still has some say in affairs,” said I.
“Its talk about birth is almost entirely sham,” proceeded she, not interested in my irrelevant comment. “But I found that it was the most substantial aristocracy, the only one that was respected everywhere, just as the English money circulates everywhere. And it’s the only one that makes much of an impression at home. We are so ignorant that we think England is all that it pretends to be—the powerful part of Europe. Of course, it isn’t, but—no matter. I decided for an English title.”
“And Margot?”