perhaps, but for the opinions of those about her, Hesper would have
been worse than she was.

"Am I right, then, in thinking," began Mary, "that people of your class
care only that a man should wear the look of a gentleman, and carry
himself like one?--that, whether his appearance be a reality or a mask,
you do not care, so long as no mask is removed in your company?--that
he may be the lowest of men, but, so long as other people receive him,
you will, too, counting him good enough?"

Hesper held her peace. She had by this time learned some facts
concerning the man she had married which, beside Mary's question, were
embarrassing.

"It is interesting," she said at length, "to know how the different
classes in a country regard each other." But she spoke wearily: it was
interesting in the abstract, not interesting to her.

"The way to try a man," said Mary, "would be to turn him the other way,
as I saw the gentleman who is taking your portrait do yesterday trying
a square--change his position quite, I mean, and mark how far he
continued to look a true man. He would show something of his real self
then, I think. Make a nobleman a shopkeeper, for instance, and see what
kind of a shopkeeper he made. If he showed himself just as honorable
when a shopkeeper as he had seemed when a nobleman, there would be good
reason for counting him an honorable man."

"What odd fancies you have, Mary!" said Hesper, yawning.

"I know my father would have been as honorable as a nobleman as he was
when a shopkeeper," persisted Mary.

"That I can well believe--he was your father," said Hesper, kindly,
meaning what she said, too, so far as her poor understanding of the
honorable reached.

"Would you mind telling me," asked Mary, "how you would define the
difference between a nobleman and a shopkeeper?"

Hesper thought a little. The question to her was a stupid one. She had
never had interest enough in humanity to care a straw what any
shopkeeper ever thought or felt. Such people inhabited a region so far
below her as to be practically out of her sight. They were not of her
kind. It had never occurred to her that life must look to them much as
it looked to her; that, like Shylock, they had feelings, and would
bleed if cut with a knife. But, although she was not interested, she
peered about sleepily for an answer. Her thoughts, in a lazy fashion,
tumbled in her, like waves without wind--which, indeed, was all the
sort of thinking she