irst to resume conversation.

"Papa," he asked, still pondering the problem of rich and poor, "don't
some of the old families die out?"

"They do."

"Then others must come up to take their place, or the people who do the
ruling would come to an end."

"That's the way of it, my boy." The Collector nodded and cracked a
walnut. "New families spring up; and a devilish ugly show they usually
make of it at first. It takes three generations, they say, to breed a
gentleman; and, in my opinion, that's under the mark."

"And a lady?"

"Women are handier at picking up appearances; 'adaptable' 's the word.
But the trouble with them is to find out whether they have the real
thing or not. For my part, if you want the real thing, I believe there
are more gentlemen than gentlewomen in the world; and Batty Langton says
you may breed out the old Adam, but you'll never get rid of Eve. . . .
But, bless my soul, Dicky, it's early days for you to be discussing the
sex!"

Dicky, however, was perfectly serious.

"But I _do_ mean what you call the real thing, papa. Couldn't a poor
girl be born so that she had it from the start? Oh, I can't tell what I
mean exactly--"

"On the contrary, child, you are putting it uncommonly well; at any
rate, you are making me understand what you mean, and that's the A and Z
of it, whether in talk or in writing. 'Is there--can there be--such a
thing as a natural born lady?' that's your question, hey?"
The Collector peeled his walnut and smiled to himself. In other
company--Batty Langton's, for example--he would have answered cynically
that to him the phenomenon of a natural born lady would first of all
suggest a doubt of her mother's virtue. "Well, no," he answered after a
while; "if you met such a person, and could trace back her family
history, ten to one you'd discover good blood somewhere in it.
Old stocks fail, die away underground, and, as time goes on, are
forgotten; then one fine day up springs a shoot nobody can account for.
It's the old sap taking a fresh start. See?"

Dicky nodded. It would take him some time work out the theory, but he
liked the look of it.

His drowsed young brain--for the hour was past bedtime--applied it idly
to a picture that stood out, sharp and vivid, from the endless train of
the day's impressions: the picture of a girl with quiet, troubled eyes,
composed lips, and hands that beat upon a blazing curtain, not flinching
at the pain. . . . And just then,