"There is no reason why we should talk. All the old desires have ceased to be. We no longer want anything or expect anything."
"Come. I shall do my best to bring the Past back to you. First, I have learned who you were. That is why I have called you together. In the old times you all belonged to gentlefolk."
This announcement produced no effect at all. They listened with lack-lustre looks. They had entirely forgotten that there were ever such distinctions as gentle and simple.
"You will remember presently," said Christine, not discouraged. "I have found out in the ancient Rolls your names and your families."
"Names and families," said one of the men, "are gone long ago. Christine, what is the good of reviving the memory of things that can never be restored?"
But the man named Jack Carera, the sailor of whom I have already spoken, stepped forward. I have said that the sailors were a dangerous class, on account of their independence and their good meaning.
"Tell us," he said, "about our families. Why, I, for one, have never forgotten that I was once a gentleman. It is hard to tell now, because they have made us all alike; but for many, many years—I know not how many—we who had been gentlemen consorted together."
"You shall again," said Christine, "if you please. Listen, then. First, my grandfather. He was called Sir Arthur Farrance, and he was called a Baronet. To be a Baronet was, in those days, something greatly desired by many people. A man, in the old books, was said to enjoy the title of Baronet. But I know not why one man was so raised above another."
"Heugh! Heugh! Heugh!" coughed the old man. "I remember that. Why, what is there to remember except the old times? I was a Baronet—the fifth Baronet. My country place was in Sussex, and my town address was White's and the Travellers'."
"Yes," Christine nodded. "My grandfather's memory is tenacious; he forgets nothing of the things that happened when he was young. I have learned a great deal from him. He seems to have known all your grandmothers, for instance, and speaks of them as if he had loved them all."