“Had we had the courage to live according to simpler rules, we should have been saved the innumerable pin-pricks which made our social existences so irksome, and for which we received no sympathy.” Gwendolen looked at Temple as if she had discovered the reason of all past dissensions.
“We always thought,” resumed the valet, “that the upper classes worried themselves about nothing; and we naturally concluded that, in their way of seeing life and of feeling imaginary sorrows, lay the difference between them and us.” A fly was beating its tiny body against a window-pane. “I remember my father telling me how he once lay, badly wounded, in the Crimean War. On the ground, close to him, lay Captain Willesmere, severely injured in the groin. My father said he never should forget the moment when the young captain turned towards him, writhing under his pain, and offered him the last drops of brandy in his flask. The exertion had no doubt been too much for the young man, for he fell back in a swoon. That drop of spirits saved my father’s life, my lord, and he often told me that at that time he felt there was no social distance between himself and the Earl’s son.”
“I do hope the gallant Captain soon recovered,” eagerly remarked Mrs Archibald. “Just what a gentleman would do; but I am afraid the lower class is not worth such sacrifice.”
“The next time they met,” went on Temple, “it was in the hall of Gloucester House; many years after. My father was footman, and Captain Willesmere had become the Earl of Dunraven. The crowd was great, and my father, who had only just recovered from a severe illness, was suddenly overcome by the heat, and as he helped the Earl with his coat, fell all of a heap on his shoulder. The latter, furious at being thus familiarly handled, pushed my father forward, who fell on his back and heard the nobleman say, ‘Damn you, rascal, are you drunk? can’t you see who I am?’ When as a result, my father had to seek another situation, he could not but reflect with bitterness upon the disparity which exists between classes; although he wondered what difference there was between a trooper who lay wounded on the ground for his country, and a footman who felt suddenly ill whilst fulfilling his duties in his master’s house.”