"Utterly!" said Sempaly with a whimsical intonation. "A foreign element is always intrusive; we are much more comfortable among ourselves."
Tea was now brought in on a Japanese table and the secretary and his inferior birth were for the time forgotten.
CHAPTER II.
Sempaly was not merely affecting the democrat to annoy his cousin the countess; he firmly believed himself to be a liberal because he laughed at conservatism, and regarded the nobility as a time-honored structure--a relic of the past, like the pyramids, only not quite so perdurable. But in spite of his theoretical respect for the rights of man and his satirical contempt for the claims of privilege, Sempaly was really less tolerant than his cousin of "the dark ages." Ilsenbergh, with all his feudal crotchets, was an aristocrat only from a sense of fitness while Sempaly was an aristocrat by instinct; Ilsenbergh's pride of rank was an affair of party and dignity, Sempaly's was a matter of superfine nerves.
A few days after this conversation Sempaly met the general and told him that the new secretary had arrived, adding with a smile: "I do not think he will do!"
"Why not?" asked the general.
"He speaks very bad French and he knows nothing about bric-à-brac," replied Sempaly with perfect gravity. "I introduced him yesterday to Madame de Gandry and he had hardly turned his back when she asked me--she is the daughter of a leather-seller at Lille, you know--'is he a man of family?'--and would you believe it, I could not tell her. That is the sort of thing I never know." Then he added with a singular smile: "His name is Cecil--Cecil Maria. Cecil Maria Sterzl! It sounds well do not you think?"
Cecil Maria! It was a ridiculous name and ill-suited the man. His father had been an officer of dragoons who had retired early to become a country gentleman--the dearest dream of the retired officer; his mother was a faded Fräulein von ---- who had all her linen--not merely for her trousseau but all she ever purchased--marked with her coronet, who stuck up a flag on the turret of their little country house with her arms, and insisted on being addressed as baroness--which she never had been--by all her acquaintance. When, within a year of her marriage, she became the mother of a fine boy it was a burning question what his name should be.
"Cecil Maria," lisped the lady.
"Nonsense! The boy shall be called Anthony after his grandfather," said his father, and the mother burst into tears. What man can resist the tears of the mother of his first-born? The child was christened Cecil.