“I can’t be friends with people if they don’t want me!”
Azalea tried to explain that in public life friendship and association are more or less interchangeable terms. “You were not friends with all your classmates at school,” she said, “but you associated with them, especially on formal occasions. It was then that your status was fixed by your class. It is exactly the same with your position as Mr. Dilling’s wife. You must feel yourself worthy of belonging to the highest class—the class which has been reached by a very prominent man, who will be known in history as one of the greatest statesmen of his country.”
“What must I do?” asked Marjorie, as Mrs. Deane might have said it.
“Learn and observe social distinctions. Everyone else does. Show that you respect your husband’s achievements and others will follow your lead. Why, the Society Columns are read to better advantage by the tradespeople, the gas inspector, the telephone operators, the very cab drivers, than you.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” said Marjorie, very close to tears.
“I mean that those people almost unerringly place the rest of us in our proper class. They observe the rules of precedence, which you don’t. If there happened to be but one cab at a stand, and both you and Mrs. Blaine wanted it, which one of you would get the thing?”
Marjorie did not answer.
“Mrs. Blaine! You know it! Why? Because she goes to Church regularly on Sundays, pays her bills promptly, refuses to gossip and slander her neighbours? Not a bit of it! Because she puts a value on herself that is compatible with her husband’s position . . . at least, that’s near enough the mark to serve my purpose in scolding you!”
“All right,” sighed Marjorie, “I’ll try to be stiff with people, if that’s the way to help Raymond. I don’t believe it, you know, Azalea, but I think I see what you mean.”
Azalea, however, was not so sanguine.