“Do not hesitate to say whatever you feel, Temple,” remarked Gwen.
“Well, if your lordship will allow me to say so, I think we all looked up to the aristocracy as an institution; just as we honoured the Royal Family and the House of Commons. But we did not think much of them as individuals, and felt irritable with our employers.”
“What a shocking word to use for your _superiors_,” and Mrs Archibald raised her eyelids as she laid a stress on the last word.
“Was I a worse master, than any other?” inquired Lionel. “Dear Mrs Archibald, you have nothing to eat,” and he handed a plate of cakes to her.
“I think you are making a fool of yourself Lionel,” she remarked in a low tone.
“Well, Temple, you do not answer my question. Forget that you are my valet, as I shall forget I am Lord Somerville. Let us stand man to man, after these long centuries of grievances and misunderstandings.”
“For the first time in my career of a valet, I feel that I can speak to you as a man; but I cannot explain why it is.”
“It must be that we have no clothes, Temple,” cheerfully said Sinclair, who had moved away from the window and stood leaning on the back of Eva’s couch.
“Yes, one man’s as good as another,” remarked Lionel. “But do you not think that you all envied us very much; for you certainly aped all our ways?”
“I don’t know about our envying you, my lord. I daresay we longed for some of your comforts, and envied the facility with which you smoothed down your existence, by packing yourselves off abroad whenever you were weary of your amusements at home. But I do not believe we ever wanted to change our characters for yours. We could not make you out. That is the truth about it.—I am sure I ought not to talk so free before the ladies.”
“Go on, Temple,” softly said Gwen. “I want to know everything that has stood between you and us for so long.”
“It is not that we felt no sympathy for you in your grief. Oh, dear! no. When a Duke loses the wife he loves, or a lady the child she adores, it goes straight to a man’s heart, whoever that man is. But it was in your funny kinds of worries that we were at sea. It seemed so childish to worry about trifles. I remember your lordship’s mother; I never saw anyone put out for nothing as she was. The lady’s maid once told me that her ladyship had not slept for two nights because one course at dinner had been spoiled. We all laughed very much about that in the servants’ hall. If such a thing had happened to any of us in our homes, we should have taken it jokily, and told our friends that we couldn’t help the roast mutton being underdone, or the pudding being burnt. Very likely we should have ended by telling them, that if they only came for what they could get out of us, they had better stay at home.”