"I congratulate General von Reiter on his memory for such unimportant history as that of Belgium," said Guild, reddening.
"Oh, we Germans are studious in our youth—and thorough. Nothing is too unimportant to ignore and"—he smiled grimly—"nothing is too vast for us to undertake—and accomplish."
He lifted his hand to his mustache again. "Mr. Guild," he said, "at the elections in America you—ah—vote of course?"
"No."
"What?"
Guild remained silent.
The general, stroking his mustache, said pleasantly: "The Belgian nobility always interested me; it is so exclusive and there are so few families of the classe noble. Except for those ten families who are independent of Court favour—like the Croys and De Lignes—there seem to be only about thirty families who possess the privileges of the Golden Book. Is this not so?"
"General von Reiter appears to know."
The general seemed gratified at this corroboration of his own memory. "And," he went on amiably, "this Belgian nobility is a real nobility. Once of it, always a part of it. And, too, its code is so rigid, so inexorably precise that it seems almost Prussian. For example, the code of the Belgian aristocracy permits none of its members to go into any commercial business, any trade—even forbids an entry into high finance. Only the Church and Army are open to it; and in the Army only the two Guides regiments and the Lancers are permitted to young men of the aristocracy." He gazed almost mildly at the young man: "You are in business, you tell me?"
"Yes."