“Because Fitzroy remarked that the cathedral would always remain at Salisbury, whereas a perfect June day in the New Forest does not come once in a blue moon when one really wants it.”
“For a person of his class he appears to say that sort of thing rather well.”
Cynthia’s arched eyebrows were raised a little.
“Why do you invariably insist on the class distinction?” she cried. “I have always been taught that in England the barrier of rank is being broken down more and more every day. Your society is the easiest in the world to enter. You tolerate people in the highest circles who would certainly suffer from cold feet if they showed up too prominently in New York or Philadelphia; isn’t it rather out of fashion to be so exclusive?”
“Our aristocracy has such an assured position that it can afford to unbend,” quoted the other.
“Oh, is that it? I heard my father say the other day that it has often made him tired to see the way in which some of your titled nonentities grovel before a Lithuanian Jew who is a power on the Rand. But unbending is a different thing to groveling, perhaps?”
Mrs. Devar sighed, yet she gave a moment’s scrutiny to a wine-list brought by the head waiter.
“A small bottle of 61, please,” she said in an undertone.
Then she sighed again, deprecating the Vanrenen directness.