“A foreign title,” answered Paul, “is nothing in England. I soon found that out at Eton and at Trinity. It was impossible there. I dropped it, and I have never taken it up again.”
“Yes, you old stupid, and you have never taken the place you are entitled to, in consequence.”
“What place? May I button that?”
“Thanks.”
She held out her arm while he, with fingers much too large for such dainty work, buttoned her glove.
“The place in society,” she answered.
“Oh; does that matter? I never thought of it.”
“Of course it matters,” answered the lady, with an astonished little laugh. (It is wonderful what an importance we attach to that which has been dearly won.) “Of course it matters,” answered Etta; “more than—well, more than any thing.”
“But the position that depends upon a foreign title cannot be of much value,” said the pupil of Karl Steinmetz.
Etta shook her pretty head reflectively.