“Isn't that the same? Isn't it all in the look?”
“By no means. A man must be a gentleman or he is nothing! A gentleman would rather not have been born than not be a gentleman!” said lady Ann.
She spoke to an ignorant person from the colonies, where they could not be supposed to understand such things, and never suspected the danger she and her false importance were in with the little colonial girl.
“But if his parents were gentlefolk?” suggested Barbara.
“Birth predetermines style, both in body and mind, I grant,” said lady Ann; “education and society must do their parts to make any man a gentleman; and where all has been done, I must confess to having seen remarkable failures. Bad blood must of course have got in somehow.”
“I wish I knew what makes a gentleman!” sighed Barbara. “I have all my life been trying to understand the thing.—Tell me, lady Ann—to be a gentleman, must a man be a good man?”
“I am sorry to say,” she answered, “it is not in the least necessary.”
“Then a gentleman may do bad things, and be a gentleman still?”
“Yes—that is, some bad things.”
“Do you mean—not many bad things?”