“Yes, go and sit with auntie,” said Mr. Davis, as the unhappy young man, with all his liveliest fears returning, approached this old lady of most formidable aspect.
“Sit here,” said the old lady, placing her hand on the vacant chair at her side.
Mr. Jordan obeyed with great docility.
“By the way, what is your name?” inquired the old lady in a much softer tone than that which she seemed habitually to use.
“My n-n-name is William Jordan, ma’am,” said the young man, overawed a good deal by her demeanour, yet at the same time already beginning to feel much more at his ease than he had done in the presence of Chrissie and the goddess.
“Well, Mr. Jordan,” said the old lady, with a subacid precision which yet did not seem unpleasant, “you are in the unhappy position this evening of being the only gentleman present.”
The significance of this pregnant assertion was not at first rendered to Mr. Jordan, but the old lady, observing his bewilderment, deigned to make it clear.
“My nephew,” she said, “is a very able young man, but he is far removed from being a gentleman. His friends are not able young men, and they are still further removed from being gentlemen. I call them cads, Mr. Jordan; I call them cads. And those women! I have no words for them. I doubt whether the Dowager Lady Brigintop would have had words for them either. It is a singular fact, Mr. Jordan, which you may have observed, though I doubt it, that in all grades of society the women are either better than the men or they are worse. But they are never on the same level. I consider it an outrage, Mr. Jordan, for a Christian gentlewoman to be asked to meet women of that type. I am sorry to say, Mr. Jordan, that my nephew is like his father, he is deficient in the finer shades of feeling. To think that my brother Charles should appear at an evening party in the uniform of a police constable! A man who is capable of such a breach of taste is capable of anything. I would blame his wife Maria, but, unfortunately, she was ever too poor a creature to be worthy of blame in anything. Mr. Jordan, you are entitled to sincere sympathy. I cannot conceive of a harder fate than to be born a gentleman in your present rank of life.”
This monologue, delivered in a sharp and stinging staccato, was so much over the head of Mr. Jordan as to be completely unintelligible.
“I speak with authority,” the old lady continued in a manner that made the proclamation superfluous. “It has been my ill fortune to occupy your position for many years.”