"I should have thought," Jane declared, "that in these democratic days the best thing we could do would be to prove ourselves human like other people."
"And people call you clever!" her mother scoffed. "Why, my dear child, any slight respect which we still receive from the lower orders is based upon their conviction that somehow or other we are, after all, made differently from them. Sometimes they hate us for it and sometimes they love us for it. The great thing, nowadays, however, is to cultivate and try and strengthen that belief of theirs."
"How did you come to see this rag?" Jane enquired mildly.
"Your Aunt Somerham brought it round this morning while I was in bed," her mother replied. "It was a great shock to me. Also to your father. He was anxious to come with me but is threatened with an attack of gout."
"And what do you want to say to me about it? Just why did you bring me that rag and show me those paragraphs?"
"My dear, I must know how much truth there is in them. Have you been going about with this man Tallente?"
"To a certain extent, yes," Jane admitted, after a moment's hesitation.
"Chaperoned?"
"Pooh! You know I finished with all that sort of rubbish years ago, mother."
"I am informed that Mr. Tallente is a married man."