hey
gripped it all the more intensely. They were the upper middle classes.
They were Eton and Oxford. And they were going to hang on to their
privileges. In these days, it is a fool who abdicates before he's forced
to. And therefore:

"Well, then--_au revoir_ till luncheon."

They were being so awfully nice. And inwardly they were not
condescending. But socially, they just had to be. The world is made like
that. It wasn't their own private fault. It was no fault at all. It was
just the mode in which they were educated, the style of their living.
And as we know, _le style, c'est l'homme_.

Angus came of very wealthy iron people near Merthyr. Already he had a
very fair income of his own. As soon as the law-business concerning his
father's and his grandfather's will was settled, he would be well off.
And he knew it, and valued himself accordingly. Francis was the son of a
highly-esteemed barrister and politician of Sydney, and in his day would
inherit his father's lately-won baronetcy. But Francis had not very much
money: and was much more class-flexible than Angus. Angus had been born
in a house with a park, and of awful, hard-willed, money-bound people.
Francis came of a much more adventurous, loose, excitable family, he had
the colonial newness and adaptability. He knew, for his own part, that
class superiority was just a trick, nowadays. Still, it was a trick that
paid. And a trick he was going to play as long as it did pay.

While Aaron sat, a little pale at the gills, immobile, ruminating these
matters, a not very pleasant look about his nose-end, he heard a voice:

"Oh, there you ARE! I thought I'd better come and see, so that we can
fetch you at lunch time.--You've got a seat? Are you quite comfortable?
Is there anything I could get you? Why, you're in a non-smoker!--But
that doesn't matter, everybody will smoke. Are you sure you have
everything? Oh, but wait just one moment--"

It was Francis, long and elegant, with his straight shoulders and his
coat buttoned to show his waist, and his face so well-formed and so
modern. So modern, altogether. His voice was pleasantly modulated, and
never hurried. He now looked as if a thought had struck him. He put a
finger to his brow, and hastened back to his own carriage. In a minute,
he returned with a new London literary magazine.

"Something to read--I shall have to FLY--See you at lunch," and he had
turned and elegantly hastened, but not too fast, back to his carria