“I’m not sure that I know your friend,” said the Duke with charming urbanity, “but I’m convinced his views are sound. If I read your letter aright, you are as much opposed to the suggested alliance between your daughter and my kinsman as I am myself.”
“That is so, your Grace. It simply won’t do.”
“I quite agree,” said the Duke, “but from your point of view—why won’t it? I ask merely for information.”
“Why won’t it, sir?” said Joe, surprisedly. “Don’t I say the aristocracy’s the aristocracy?”
“In other words you disapprove of them on principle?”
“No, sir, it’s because I respect ’em so highly,” said Joe, with a simple largeness that bore no trace of the sycophant. “I’ve not reggerlated the traffic at Hyde Park Corner all these years without learning that it won’t do to keep on mixing things up in the way we’re doing at present. Things are in a state of flux, as you might say.”
“Profoundly true,” said the Duke, with a fine appearance of gravity. “And I have asked you to come here, Sergeant Kelly, to advise me in a very delicate matter. In the first place, I assume that you have withheld your consent to this ridiculous marriage.”
“That is so, your Grace. But the young parties are that headstrong they may not respect their elders. I told the young gentleman what my feeling was, and I told the girl, but I’m sorry to say they laughed at me. Yes, sir, society is in a state of flux and no mistake.”
“Well, Sergeant Kelly, what’s to be done?”
“I should like your Grace to speak a word to the parties. Seemingly they take no notice of me. But perhaps they might of you, sir.”