Allerton took three strides across the corner of the room, and three
strides back to the fireplace again. "How am I going to escape that?
She says she won't let me give her any money."

"Oh, money!" Steptoe brushed money aside as if it had no value. "She
wouldn't of course. Not 'er sort."

"But what _is_ 'er sort. She seemed one thing yesterday, and to-day
she's another."

"That's somethink like what I mean. That young lydy 'as growed more in
twenty-four hours than lots'd grow in twenty-four years." He
considered how best to express himself further. "Did Mr. Rash ever
notice that it isn't bein' born of a certain kind o' family as'll myke
a man a gentleman? Of course 'e did. But did 'e ever notice that a
man'll often _not_ be born of a certain kind o' family, and yet be a
gentleman all the syme?"

"I know what you're driving at; but it depends on what you mean by a
gentleman."

"And I couldn't 'ardly sye--not no more than I could tell you what the
smell of a flower was, not even while you was a-smellin' of it. You
know a gentleman's a gentleman, and you may think it's this or that
what mykes 'im so, but there ain't no wye to put it into words. Now
you, Mr. Rash, anybody'd know you was a gentleman what merely looked
at you through a telescope; but you couldn't explyne it, not if you
was took all to pieces like the works of a clock. It ain't nothink you
do and nothink you sye, because if we was to go by that----"

"Good Lord, stop! We're not talking about me."

"No, Mr. Rash. We're talkin' about the queer thing it is what mykes
a gentleman, and I sye that I can't sye. But I _know_. Now, tyke
Eugene. 'E's just a chauffeur. But no one couldn't be ten minutes with
Eugene and not know 'e's a gentleman through and through.
Obligin'--good-mannered--modest--polite to the very cat 'e is--and
always with that nice smile--wouldn't _you_ sye as Eugene was a
gentleman, if anybody was to arsk you, Mr. Rash?"

"If they asked me from that point of view--yes--probably. But what has
that to do with it?"

"It 'as this to do with it that when you arsk me what sort that young
lydy is I 'ave to reply as she's not the sort to accept money from
strynge gentlemen, because it ain't what she's after."

"Then what on earth _is_ she after? Whatever it is she can have it, if
I can only find out what it is."

Steptoe answered this in his own way. "It's very 'ard for the poor to
see so much that's good and beautiful in the world, and know