vide the necessary money for
what we wish."

Lord Tancred listened; he thought of his mother's similar argument at
breakfast.

"You see," the financier went on reflectively, "in life, the wise man
always pays willingly for what he really wants, as you are doing, for
instance, in your blind taking of my niece. Your old nobility in England
is the only one of any consequence left in the world. The other
countries' system of the titles descending to all the younger sons, _ad
infinitum_, makes the whole thing a farce after a while. A Prince in the
Caucasus is as common as a Colonel in Kentucky, and in Austria and
Germany there are poor Barons in the streets. There was a time in my
life when I could have had a foreign title, but I found it ridiculous,
and so refused it. But in England, in spite of your amusing radicalism
the real thing still counts. It is a valid asset--a tangible security
for one's money--from a business point of view. And Americans or
foreigners like myself and my niece, for instance, are securing
substantial property and equal return, when we bring large fortunes in
our marriage settlements to this country. What satisfaction comparable
to the glory of her English position as Marchioness of Darrowood could
Miss Clara D. Woggenheimer have got out of her millions, if she had
married one of her own countrymen, or an Italian count? Yet she gives
herself the airs of a benefactress to poor Darrowood and throws her
money in his teeth, whereas Darrowood is the benefactor, if there is a
case of it either way. But to me, a sensible business man, the bargain
is equal. You don't go to an art dealer's and buy a very valuable
Rembrandt for its marketable value, and then, afterwards, jibe at the
picture and reproach the art dealer. Money is no good without position,
and here in England you have had such hundreds of years of freedom from
invasion, that you have had time, which no other country has had, to
perfect your social system. Let the Radicals and the uninformed of other
lands rail as they will, your English aristocracy is the finest body of
thinkers and livers in the world. One hears ever of the black sheep, the
few luridly glaring failures, but never of the hundreds of great and
noble lives which are England's strength."

"By Jove!" said Lord Tancred, "you ought to be in the House of Lords,
Francis! You'd wake them up!"

The financier looked down at his plate; he always lowered his eyes when
he felt things. No