“I did,” said Rube.
It struck the crowd speechless. What? Rube Rutland, the son of an ex-Governor, an ex-Judge, an ex-Senator, dead now, but dead with all his titles on him; Rube Rutland, the greatest catch in the State, going to crown Mellville Creecy, daughter of that old ignoramus who made “fritters” of the King’s English, and dug potatoes, and hoed corn, and ploughed in the fields with his own hands? The thing was preposterous! It was a thing, too, to be resented by his friends and equals.
Miss Rutland drew her brother aside.
“Rube, you cannot mean it! You surely have some sense! A little, if not much! You can’t crown that obscure girl with the cream of the county, your own personal friends, all around you.”
“Can’t I?” said Rube. “I can and will! The cream of the county may go to—anywhere.” Rube closed up blandly: “I will not limit them in their choice of locations. That would be not only ungenerous but ungentlemanly.”
“Rube,” persisted Miss Rutland, “do listen to reason. What will mother say? What will everybody say?”
“Say what they darned please!”
Rube was first of all a freeborn American—secondly, an aristocrat.
“What’s the use of being somebody if you’ve got to knuckle down to what people say?”
“But you are not obliged to crown anybody,” insinuated Clara. “Rather than crown this low-born girl, make some one your proxy. Jerome would—”