Chapter 18 - Page 2

spending a year or so here
in business positions," the Duchess wore a thoughtful air. "That
has been going on for a decade or so. One recognizes their Teuton
type in shops and in the streets. They say they come to learn the
language and commercial methods."

"Not long ago a pompous person, who is the owner of a big shop,
pointed out to me three of them among his salesmen," Coombe said.
"He plumed himself on his astuteness in employing them. Said they
worked for low wages and cared for very little else but finding
out how things were done in England. It wasn't only business
knowledge they were after, he said; they went about everywhere--into
factories and dock yards, and public buildings, and made funny
little notes and sketches of things they didn't understand--so
that they could explain them in Germany. In his fatuous, insular
way, it pleased him to regard them rather as a species of aborigines
benefiting by English civilization. The English Ass and the
German Ass are touchingly alike. The shade of difference is that
the English Ass's sublime self-satisfaction is in the German Ass
self-glorification. The English Ass smirks and plumes himself;
the German Ass blusters and bullies and defies."

"Do you think of engaging another German Master for the little
girl?" the Duchess asked the question casually.

"I have heard of a quiet young woman who has shown herself thorough
and well-behaved in a certain family for three years. Perhaps
she also will disappear some day, but, for the present, she will
serve the purpose."

As he had not put into words to others any explanation of the
story of the small, smart establishment in the Mayfair street, so
he had put into words no explanation to her. That she was aware
of its existence he knew, but what she thought of it, or imagined
he himself thought of it, he had not at any period inquired.
Whatsoever her point of view might be, he knew it would be unbiassed,
clear minded and wholly just. She had asked no question and made
no comment. The rapid, whirligig existence of the well-known
fashionable groups, including in their circles varieties of the
Mrs. Gareth-Lawless type, were to be seen at smart functions and
to be read of in newspapers and fashion reports, if one's taste
lay in the direction of a desire to follow their movements. The
time had passed when pretty women of her kind were cut off by
severities of opinion from the delights of a world they had thrown
their dice daringly to gain. The worldly old axiom, "Be virtuous
and you will be happy," had been ironically paraphrased too often.
"Please yourself and you will be much happier than if you were
virtuous," was a