“Father, he is a gentleman.” Jean made this remark after a period of silence, during which she had sat on the porch of the shack, contemplating the moon as it rode high in the unclouded sky.
“Who is a gentleman? The man in the moon?” As he asked the question, Mr. Cameron withdrew his cigar from his mouth, and pulled the smoke in leisurely rings into the air.
“No,” Jean answered, “not the man in the moon; the man on the hoist, Stephen Loring.”
“What made you think of him?”
“I met him this afternoon in the valley. That put him into my head.”
“Well, I advise you to take him out again.”
“Not at all. I shall keep him there. He interests me, because he is a gentleman.”
“What are the hall-marks of a gentleman?”
“Oh,” said Jean slowly, “there are a hundred little signs which cannot be suppressed. A deacon may turn into a horse thief, or a millionaire into a beggar; but once a gentleman, always a gentleman. Mr. Loring tries to hide it; but he cannot. Oh, haven’t you noticed the difference?”
“Between Loring and the other men? No, I cannot say that I have. But I am not particularly interested in the question whether my hoist engineers are gentlemen.”