Ingram rose, and was silent for a moment.
"Lavender," he said, "it does not matter much whether you and I quarrel—I was prepared for that, in any case—but I ask you to give Sheila a chance of telling you what I had intended to tell you."
"Indeed, I shall do nothing of the sort. I never invite confidences. When she wishes to tell me anything she knows I am ready to listen. But I am quite satisfied with the position of affairs as they are at present."
"God help you, then!" said his friend, and went away, scarcely daring to confess to himself how dark the future looked.
[TO BE CONTINUED.]
ENGLISH COURT FESTIVITIES
Americans have an impression that the English think it a considerable distinction to be presented at court. But the ceremony of presentation has entirely ceased to have any social significance in England. Any young gentleman who imagines that the door of English society will be thrown open to him on the publication of his appearance at a drawing-room had better save the expense of a dress and carriage and stay at home. If a lady be ambitious of a social success, the money which a robe will cost might be expended to equal advantage anywhere else in London. However, a lady's dress may be worn again, and men may hire a court-suit for the day at a very small cost. Your tailor, if you get a good deal of him, will patch you up something tolerable for very little; so that sartorial expenses are comparatively light. One can get for the afternoon a two-horse brougham, with a coachman and footman, for a sum less than ten dollars. Still, going to court costs something, and its only possible advantage is that the spectacle is a fine and an interesting one. One has therefore to consider whether the sight is worth the fee.
A presentation at court is of quite as little advantage to an Englishman as to a foreigner coming to England. Almost anybody can be presented, and of those who are precluded from presentation, a great many occupy higher positions than many of those who have the privilege of going to court. Any graduate of a university, any clergyman, any officer in the army, is entitled to go. A merchant, an attorney, even a barrister, cannot; and yet in England a barrister, or, for that matter, a successful merchant, is apt to be a person of more consequence than a curate or a poor soldier. The court has scarcely any social significance in England. I once asked a young barrister if presentation would help him in the least in making his way in society. He said, "Not a bit."
In England the position of everybody is so well fixed that people cannot well change it by wishing it to be changed. Thus, for a poor East London curate to go to court would simply make him ridiculous. The parsons in the West End do present themselves, but there is no part of the British empire where clergymen are of such slight consequence as in the West End of London. The clergymen, as they file in along with the gayly-accoutred young guards-men, have a meek and gentle air which makes one feel that they had better have stayed away. They do not look half defiant enough. No person who is not already in such a position as to need no pushing could becomingly make his appearance at court. I remember in Shropshire to have heard a family who went down to London to be presented made the target for the ridicule of the whole neighborhood.