"Was Granny a servant when she came to Stockholm?"
"She was obliged to take service in order to live," his mother replied very gently. "There is nothing about that to be ashamed of.... I have known fine ladies who started in the kitchen. But, of course, one doesn't like to talk of it to everybody."
Keith recognized the hint in her final words, but thought it needless. He was already on his way back to his own corner, tired for the time of asking questions, when he suddenly turned and said:
"We are just as good as anybody else, are we not?"
It was a phrase he had overheard sometime. Now it seemed to fit the occasion, and it sounded good to him.
"There is the royal family," his mother rejoined enigmatically. "But one of Granny's cousins was a lieutenant-colonel in the army."
"Where is he now," Keith demanded, agog with interest.
"He is dead, and--and we have never had anything to do with his family."