“I’ll tell you what stands in the way with us. Even if we be gifted with faculties on the ball and socket system, we are afraid of using them except as is allowed by fashion, and is supposed to be elegant. We are ever considering whether we shall not lose respect if we employ them in this way, set them at that angle, fold them in such a manner, turn them about in such another. I know once,” continued Mr. Welsh, “I had burst my boot over the toe, just before I went for an important interview with an editor. I cut a sorry figure in his presence, because I was considering the hole in my boot, and whether my stocking showed through. I put my foot under the chair as far back as I could, then drew it forward and set the other foot on it. Then I hid it behind my hat, then curled it over in an ungainly fashion, so as to expose only the sole; and all the while I was with the editor, I had no thought for what we were talking about; I could not take my attention from the hole in my boot. And it is the same with us who haven’t an all-round and complete culture—we are conscious of burst seams, and splits, and exposures, and are anxious to be screening them, and so are never at our ease.”
When Mr. Welsh began to talk, he liked to talk on uninterruptedly. His wife knew this, and humoured him.
“Connected with this subject, Tryphœna, is the way in which the aristocracy manage their trains.”
“Their trains, James?”
“Exactly—their trains or skirts. You know how that it is not possible for you to be in a crowd without having your skirts trodden on and ripped out of the gathers. There used to be a contrivance, Tryphœna, I remember you had it once, like a pair of bell-ropes. You put your fingers into rings, and up came your train in a series of loops and folds, on the principle of the Venetian blind. But somehow you were always pulling up your skirt just too late, after it had been be-trampled and be-muddled. Now from what I have observed, the skirts and trains of the aristocracy are imbued with an imparted vitality from their persons, for all the world like the tail of a peacock, which it elevates when it steps about in the dirt. Their skirts shrink and rise of themselves, whenever a rude foot approaches, or they tread where the soil may bespatter.”
“Now, really, James—how can human beings lift their tails?”
“My dear, I am speaking figuratively. If you do not understand—remain in ignorance. There is, as the clown says in ‘Twelfth Night’ no darkness like ignorance. I suppose you know, my dear, what it is to be pressed upon and trampled on by those just behind you in the social ball? Well, some persons manage so cleverly that they do not get their trains crumpled; and others are in constant alarm and suspicion of everyone who approaches within a pace of theirs.”
Welsh lighted a cigar.
“Don’t you mistake me and think that I have given up my opinions. Nothing of the sort. I notice the difference between the aristocracy and ourselves, but I do not say that I do not estimate the middle class above theirs. On the contrary, I think our order of the nobility is the most honourable. To us belongs the marquisate.”
“James, how can you talk such nonsense?”