“Yes, I might find you dull, but I don’t think I should find you ridiculous,” Katharine added, as if Denham had actually brought that charge against her family. 

 “No—because we’re not in the least ridiculous. We’re a respectable middle-class family, living at Highgate.” 

 “We don’t live at Highgate, but we’re middle class too, I suppose.” 

 Denham merely smiled, and replacing the malacca cane on the rack, he drew a sword from its ornamental sheath. 

 “That belonged to Clive, so we say,” said Katharine, taking up her duties as hostess again automatically. 

 “Is it a lie?” Denham inquired. 

 “It’s a family tradition. I don’t know that we can prove it.” 

 “You see, we don’t have traditions in our family,” said Denham. 

 “You sound very dull,” Katharine remarked, for the second time. 

 “Merely middle class,” Denham replied. 

 “You pay your bills, and you speak the truth. I don’t see why you should despise us.” 

 Mr. Denham carefully sheathed the sword which the Hilberys said belonged to Clive. 

 “I shouldn’t like to be you; that’s all I said,” he replied, as if he were saying what he thought as accurately as he could. 

 “No, but one never would like to be any one else.” 

 “I should. I should like to be lots of other people.” 

 “Then why not us?” Katharine asked. 

 Denham looked at her as she sat in her grandfather’s arm-chair, drawing her great-uncle’s malacca cane smoothly through her fingers, while her background was made up equally of lustrous blue-and-white paint, and crimson books with gilt lines on them. The vitality and composure of her attitude, as of a bright-plumed bird poised easily before further flights, roused him to show her the limitations of her lot. So soon, so easily, would he be forgotten. 

 

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