previous question, which had been exercising him meanwhile, "for
the peculiarly distinguished air of birth and breeding this man has
about him." For Philip respected a duke from the bottom of his
heart, and cherished the common Britannic delusion that a man who
has been elevated to that highest degree in our barbaric rank-
system must acquire at the same time a nobler type of physique and
countenance, exactly as a Jew changes his Semitic features for the
European shape on conversion and baptism.

"Oh, dear, no," the General answered in his most decided voice.
"The Bertrams were never much to look at in any way: and as for the
old duke, he was as insignificant a little monster of red-haired
ugliness as ever you'd see in a day's march anywhere. If he hadn't
been a duke, with a rent-roll of forty odd thousand a year, he'd
never have got that beautiful Lady Camilla to consent to marry him.
But, bless you, women 'll do anything for the strawberry leaves. It
isn't from the Bertrams this man gets his good looks. It isn't from
the Bertrams. Old Ingledew's daughters are pretty enough girls. If
their aunts were like 'em, it's there your young friend got his air
of distinction."

"We never know who's who nowadays," the Dean murmured softly. Being
himself the son of a small Scotch tradesman, brought up in the Free
Kirk, and elevated into his present exalted position by the early
intervention of a Balliol scholarship and a studentship of Christ
Church, he felt at liberty to moralise in such non-committing terms
on the gradual decay of aristocratic exclusiveness.

"I don't see it much matters what a man's family was," the General
said stoutly, "so long as he's a fine, well-made, soldierly fellow,