Braided Morning Coat, beginning to feel very low and miserable, pleaded guilty to this also.
“All this, to my mind, Mr. Shelmerdine, constitutes an insuperable barrier.” Diction beautifully clear and mellow. How can it be otherwise with the Bean and Kendall tradition!
“Let me make myself quite understood, Mr. Shelmerdine. It hardly seems right, to my mind, that an old theatrical family should form an alliance with a comparatively recent peerage. I believe, Mr. Shelmerdine, ‘comparatively recent’ is not in excess of the facts. Jane, my parlor maid, has looked it up in Debrett, as my eyesight is not of the best. Created 1904, I believe, to the best of my recollection, during Mr. Vandeleur’s second administration.”
The answer was in the affirmative.
“Your father is a man of great distinction, I understand, a Proconsul who has rendered invaluable service to the Empire. All that I have heard about him redounds to his honor, but I cannot think he would give his sanction to this proposed alliance. I may say that I should not, if I were he.”
Braided Morning Coat was rather distressed.
“The fact is, Mr. Shelmerdine, I am strongly opposed to this modern craze for contracting matrimonial alliances between the theatrical profession and the peerage. To my mind, they are two entirely alien institutions. They both have their personal traditions and their private status, of which they have a right to be jealous; but it seems to me, and I am sure I voice the opinion of John Peter Kendall, were he not in his grave, that this unfortunate custom, which has lately come into vogue, lowers the dignity of both those institutions, is demoralizing in itself, and tends to diminish the respect in which either is held by the Public.”
Braided Morning Coat felt that “Hear, hear!” would have been appropriate to this beautifully delivered oration. But it had not the spirit now to say “Hear, hear” to anything. Its fond but presumptuous hopes lay shattered in a thousand pieces.
“The Public expects certain things of you, Mr. Shelmerdine, as the future head of a distinguished family. As a woman of extended public experience, I would like to give you this piece of advice, which was given to me by Mr. Macready: Never disappoint the Public, and the Public will never disappoint you. You have your duties to fulfil—to yourself, to your family, and to your country. I do not say that my granddaughter would be incapable of helping you to fulfil them, because a member of an old theatrical family, in my judgment, Mr. Shelmerdine, is unworthy of the great traditions in which she has been bred if she cannot adorn any position to which it may please Providence to call her. But, at the same time, I recognize that public opinion looks to you to form an alliance elsewhere. I am sure it will be a great disappointment to the world, and a great grief to your excellent parents, whom I have not the pleasure of knowing, but who, I am sure, must be very worthy as well as very distinguished people, if you should persist in this desire to form an alliance with my granddaughter.”
Braided Morning Coat, for all the compliments paid to it, which it had every reason to think sincere, began to feel as chastened as if it had been knocked down and run over by a Barnes and Hammersmith omnibus. Long before Grandmamma had said her say, the unlucky garment hadn’t a kick left in it.