“I consider Claude a perfect gentleman,” said Lady Austell with finality.
“I know: that ‘perfect’ spoils it all,” said Jim meditatively. “Now Mr. Osborne is a frank cad—that’s how I put it—and Claude a subtle one. That’s why I can’t stand him.”
“I daresay you’ll do your best to live on him,” said Lady Austell.
“Certainly; though I shall probably succeed without doing my best. It will be quite easy I expect.”
“And do you think that is a gentlemanly thing to do?” asked his mother, “when behind his back you call him a subtle cad?”
“Oh, yes, quite; though no perfect gentleman would dream of doing it. I think Claude has masses of good points: he simply bristles with them, but he gives one such shocks. He goes on swimmingly for a time, and then suddenly says that somebody is ‘noble looking,’ or that the carpet is ‘tasteful’ or ‘superior.’ Now Mr. Osborne doesn’t give one shocks; you know what to expect, and you get it all the time.”
Lady Austell thought this over for a moment; though Austell was quite unsatisfactory in almost all ways of life, it was impossible to regard him as a fool, and he had the most amazing way of being right. Certainly this view of the frank cad and the subtle cad had an air of intense probability about it, but it was one of those things which his mother habitually chose to ignore and if necessary deny the existence of.
“I hope you will not say any of those ridiculous things to Dora,” she remarked.
“Ah; then it is just because they are not ridiculous that you wish me to leave them unsaid. If they were ridiculous you would not mind——”
Jim waited a second to give his mother time to contradict this if she felt disposed. Apparently she did not, and he interrupted her consenting silence.