our neighbours do. When you succeed me here and marry and settle down, be able to say you've seen everything, done everything, been everything. … Be a gentleman, of course, but one can be a man as well as being a gentleman—gentility is of the heart and conduct and manners—not of position and wealth and rank. What's the good of seeing one little glimpse of life out of one little window—whether it's a soldier's window (which is the best of windows), or a sailor's, or a lawyer's, parson's, merchant's, scholar's, sportsman's, landowner's, politician's, or any other. … And go upwards and downwards too, my boy. Tramps, ostlers, costermongers and soldiers are a dam' sight more interestin' than kings—and a heap more human. A chap who's only moved in one plane of society isn't educated—not worth listening to …" and much more to the same effect—and Rupert smiled to himself as he thought of how his father had advised him not to "waste" more than a year at Sandhurst, another at Oxford, and another in an Officers' Mess, before setting forth to see real life, and real men living it hard and to the full, in the capitals and the corners of the earth.
"How the dear old boy must have worshipped mother—to have married and settled down, at forty," he reflected, "and what a beauty she must have been. She's lovely now," and again his rather hard face softened into a smile as he thought of the interview in which he told her of his intention to "chuck" his commission and go and do things and see things. Little had he known that she had fully anticipated and daily expected the declaration which he feared would be a "terrible blow" to her. … Did she
