Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/130

 *tion. It's all a bluff, my dear. Your humble servant, Jane Wren, could have been as good a duchess as the best of 'em if she had been given the chance. I don't want to be fulsome, my dear, but I'll back a girl of your brains against Lady Agatha Fitzboodle or any other titled snob."

"But I don't want to be pitted against anybody!"

"That's nonsense." Mrs. Wren shook a worldly-wise head. "As for being an outsider, a girl can't be more than a lady just as a man can't be more than a gentleman. And if you are a lady and have always gone straight you needn't fear comparison with the highest in the land."

Mary shook a head of sadness and perplexity.

"Somehow it doesn't seem right to mix things in that way," she said.

"It's the only way that keeps 'em going," said Mrs. Wren scornfully. "And well they know it. At least nature knows it. Look at Wrexham! Do you mean to say that his inbred strain wouldn't be improved by Milly? And it's the same with you and Mr. Dinneford. It's Nature at the back of it all. It's the call of the blood. If these old families keep on intermarrying long enough dry rot sets in."

Mary stood a picture of woe.

"You odd creature!" said Mrs. Wren. "I've never met a girl with such ideas as yours. I really believe you are quite as narrow and as prejudiced as Lady Agatha Fitzboodle. To hear you talk one would think you believed rank to be a really important matter."

Incredulous eyes were opened upon the voluble dame.