"You mean socially. But that again hasn't much significance in a country where socially we're all of one class. Where there's only one class there can't be any outsiders."
"Oh, that's all very fine. But look at you with your extremes of rich and poor!"
"That's the most superficial difference among us. It's the easiest possible thing to transcend. I'm transcending it now in feeling that I've a right--yes, a kind of right--to take Peter Davenant's money, because as Americans we've a claim on each other."
He threw himself against the straight back of the chair, his arms flung out with a gesture that brought his hands nearly to the floor. "You're the last people in the world to feel anything of the kind. Every one knows that you're a set of ruthless, predatory--"
"I know that's the way it seems; and I'm not defending anything that may be wrong. And yet, in spite of all appearances to the contrary, we _have_ a sense of brotherhood--I don't know any other name for it--among ourselves which isn't to be found anywhere else in the world. You English haven't got it. That's why the thing I'm saying seems mere sentiment to you, and even mawkish. You're so afraid of sentiment. But it's true. It may be only a rudimentary sense of brotherhood; and it's certainly not universal, as it ought to be, because we feel it only among ourselves. We don't really include the foreigner--not at least till he becomes one of us. I'm an instance of that limitation myself, because I can't feel it toward you, and I do--"
"You do feel it toward the big chap," he said, scornfully.
She made a renewed effort to explain herself. "You see, it's something like this. If my aunt de Melcourt, who's very well off, were to come forward and help us, I'd let her do it without scruple. Not that there's any particular reason why she should! But if she did--well, you can see for yourself that it wouldn't be as if she were a stranger."
"Of course! She's one of your own people--and all that."
"Well, he's one of our own people--Mr. Davenant. Not to the degree that she is--but the same sort of thing--even if more distant. It's very distant, I admit--"
His lip curled. "So distant as to be out of sight."
He sprang to his feet. "Look here, Olivia," he cried, nervously, holding his chair by the back, "what does it all mean? What are you leading up to?"