Owing probably to the large number of Jews and journalists and brewers and pawnbrokers who have been ennobled during the long Liberal tenure of office, this particular brand of snobbishness has rather fallen into neglect, and many of the brightest snobs of Mayfair consider the cult of the mere peerage a somewhat Victorian pursuit. But the more earnest practitioners, like Lady Mary and Sir Louis Marigold, remain unaffected by such shallowness. They argue that the conferring of a peerage is still a symbol of success, and, loyalist to the core, consider that those who are good enough for the King are good enough for them. Besides, they have found by experience that they actually do feel greater raptures in the presence of Royalty than in that of subjects of the realm, and among subjects of the realm they like dukes better than marquises, marquises than earls, earls than viscounts. It is not implied that the pleasurableness of their internal sensations would indicate to them the rank of a total stranger whose name they were ignorant of, but knowing his name and his rank, they find that their delight in converse with him increases according to his precedence. Many pleasures are wholly matters of the imagination, and this may be one, but the hallucination is in this case, as in that of other nervous disorders, quite complete. And when a year or two ago Lady Mary was dangerously ill with appendicitis, her husband sensibly assuaged the deep and genuine anxiety he felt for her, by going through, day after day, the cards of the eminent people who had called to make enquiries. A prince (a very eminent one) was so condescending as to call twice, once on a Monday and once on the following Thursday. To this day Sir Louis cannot but believe that the better news the doctor gave him about my lady on that happy afternoon, was somehow connected with the magic of the repeated visit.
It has been mentioned that Sir Louis is in the habit of calling his wife ‘Princess’; it has also been hinted that she alludes to him as ‘Sir Baronet.’ There is a touch of badinage, of playfulness in both these titles, but below the playfulness is a substratum of seriousness. For she is descended from kings so ancient that nobody knows anything about them, and he is a real Baronet, and since his title in ordinary use is that of a mere knight, she and others of their intimates are accustomed to call him Sir Baronet, in order to mark the difference between him and such people as provincial mayors or eminent actors and musicians. It must be supposed, too, that he is far from discouraging this, since he has printed on his cards, ‘Sir Louis Marigold, Bart., M.P.,’ in full. It may be unusual, but then there are, unfortunately, not many Baronets who take a proper pride in the honours with which their Sovereign has decorated them or their ancestors. Marquises and earls put the degree of their nobility on their cards instead of just calling themselves ‘Lord,’ and surely a Baronet cannot go wrong in following so august an example. But there is another custom of his to which perhaps exception may be taken, for it is his habit when entertaining a luncheon-party at which mere commoners are present (this is not a frequent occurrence) to step jauntily along in his proper precedence to the dining-room, leaving the less exalted persons to follow. He does it in a careless, unconscious manner, and this manner is by no means put on: he walks in front of lowlier commoners instinctively: he does not think about it: his legs just take him. It is perhaps scarcely necessary to add that instinct is not so strong with him as to go in before any lady, even if she were his own washerwoman, for the obligations of chivalry outweigh with him even those of nobility. It has always been so with the true aristocrat, and it is so with him. Perhaps if a Suffragette were present he might go on ahead, for he considers that all women who hold any views but his on that subject have unsexed themselves. In his more indulgent moments he alludes to them as ‘deluded wretches.’