Mrs. Crasterton took me in hand for the day. She said I looked so dainty and girlish, and the real bush maid in my little dresses that it would be a pity to spoil the effect with sophisticated clothes; ordinary girls needed clothes. We lunched at Geebung Villa in solemn state. Mrs. Crasterton said that I must guard against any irreverence for things that mattered or I would not succeed socially.

As a beginning she recited her pedigree. She had descended from a Saxon king. We had a fine pedigree too, containing some moated ruins in Chancery, but Pa always said that a pedigree counted only in stock, as human beings had not sufficient knowledge in eugenics to make it count in themselves yet; that there were too many people living on the reputation of a grandfather while their own works would not bear examination. Pa also held that it was not descent in human breed but ascent that counted.

Until initiated by Mrs. Crasterton, I had not dreamed that aristocraticness was locally of so much importance.

I knew we had many genuine ladies hidden in remote humpies, while females of feraboracious manners and habits were installed in the mansions of Potts Point, where dwells the nucleus of our aristocracy yet to be—or to be done away with.

I did not enjoy my lunch. It takes great cooking to equal Ma’s. Mrs. Crasterton directed my admiration to the antique candle-sticks. The age of the cheese had more pungency. Judged by the normal longevity of cheese, it must have been of such antiquity as to have earned resurrection. It had become a living thing.

Everything hung fire until the evening when Mrs. Crasterton was to be “At Home” to her friends. We were to dress early, have dinner early, and await SOCIETY. Edmée informed me that Mrs. Crasterton was truly of a fine family, though of course slightly inferior to the Actems.

Even in the bush each family I knew was sure of being a little superior to the others. Perhaps it is to obviate such an absence of classification that the society zoo in England is so strictly graded in steps, with a stud book, so that those listed cannot take more than their share of importance.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

SOCIETY.

I put on my white dress and stole down. Gaddy was already there, and in swallow tails looked like an egg. I found out later that his nickname was “The Egg”. Mrs. Crasterton’s head and train promised smartly for what was hidden in the big shawl. Edmée was in her little wet-night dress. There was no trace of Derek, but there was present a small insipid young man with big ears. He was unmistakably infatuated with Edmée. There was also a man about six-foot-two in a violent check suit and long faded walrus moustache.

Mrs. Crasterton had apologised for him as a sort of cousin. She said relations were so huffy that she had to overlook his not being in evening dress, that he was leaving immediately after dinner. He talked in a self-important voice to Jemima, as he call her, and did not see me at all beyond a nod when introduced as “a little girl”. His theory was that people of his class, that meant SOCIETY’S and Jemima’s, should never touch politics except for what was in them. They should feather their nests and get out while the going was good.