"My dear, you know you are beautiful, and you have the cachet that all
the Courthornes wear. Still, you could not like him? Tell me about
him."
Maud Barrington curled herself up further. "I think I could have liked
him, but that was all," she said. "He was nice to look at and did all
the little things gracefully; but he had never done anything else,
never would, and, I fancy, had never wanted to. Now a man of that kind
would very soon pall on me, and I should have lost my temper trying to
waken him to his responsibilities."
"And what kind of man would please you?"
Maud Barrington's eyes twinkled, but the fact that she answered at all
was a proof of the sympathy between herself and the questioner. "I do
not know that I am anxious any of them should," she said. "But since
you ask, he would have to be a man first: a toiling, striving animal
who could hold his own amidst his fellows wherever he was placed.
Secondly, one would naturally prefer a gentleman, though I do not like
the word, and one would fancy the combination a trifle rare, because
brains and birth do not necessarily tally, and the man educated by the
struggle for existence is apt to be taught more than he ever would be
at Oxford or in the army. Still, men of that stamp forget a good deal,
and learn so much that is undesirable, you see. In fact, I only know
one man who would have suited me, and he is debarred by age and
affinity--but, because we are so much alike, I can't help fancying that
you once knew another.
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