Julia had colored haughtily, but wondered at her eagerness in exclaiming: “My husband was in the navy, but he has resigned and is now a member of Parliament.”
“Well, that’s doing something, but not much. I remember, now, Cherry told me he’s going to be a duke. Then, I suppose, he’ll do nothing at all.”
“Oh, yes, dukes have to look after their estates; they don’t leave everything to their stewards; they take a paternal interest in the tenantry; sometimes they are magistrates, and sometimes they go to the House of Lords.”
“Well, that’s just playing with life, to my mind,” said young Tay, with conviction. “A man isn’t a man who doesn’t earn his keep and make his pile. I’m almost sorry my father is well off: I’d like to make my own fortune. But there’s this satisfaction; if I don’t work as hard as he does, when my time comes, I’ll be a beggar fast enough. Competition’s awful; and even people that do nothing but cut coupons for a living often get stuck. People are rich to-day and poor to-morrow, when they’re not sharp. Makes life interesting. But just living on ancestral acres—Gee! I’d die of old age before I was twenty-five.”
“I wonder if that is the way Ishbel felt?” murmured Julia, thoughtfully. Ishbel’s sudden departure from the tenets of her class had astounded her, and, in spite of explanations, she was puzzled yet.
“Ishbel?”
“Lady Ishbel Jones. She is the daughter of a poor Irish peer, and married a very rich City man. After five years of society and pleasure—she is beautiful and charming—she suddenly decided she wanted to make money herself and opened a hat shop in Bond Street. She would just suit you.”
But young Tay frowned and shook his head vigorously. “Not a bit of it. Women were not made to work, but to be worked for. If I had my way, every man should be made to support all his poor women relations, and if the women hadn’t any men relations, then I’d have the other men taxed to support them. It makes me sick seeing girls going to work in the morning when I am starting for my ride in the Park. And a rich man to let his wife work! I call that downright disgusting.”
Julia, much to her astonishment, resented this speech. “That’s tyranny of another kind. Women are not dolls. You talk like a Turk.”
“Turk? Dolls!” He arose in his wrath. “I’d have you know that American women do just about as they please, and American men are famous for letting them.” He added, with his natural honesty: “Some are strict and old-fashioned, like my father, but nobody could say he wasn’t generous. And what I told you is the reputation of American men, anyhow.”