human
Dear Lady Marabout, do forgive me, but it is such fun to hear you positively, for once, malicious! Who is your Horror, genealogically speaking? this terrible--what's his name?--Chandos Cheveley?
gpt
The younger son of a younger son of one of the Marquises of Danvers, I believe, my dear; an idle man about town, you know, with not a sou to be idle upon, who sets the fashion, but never pays his tailor. I am never malicious, I hope, but I do consider men of that stamp very objectionable.
human
But what is Sir Philip but a man about town?
gpt
My son! Of course he is a man about town. My dear, what else should he be? But if Philip likes to lounge all his days away in a club-window, he has a perfect right; he has fortune. Chandos Cheveley is not worth a farthing, and yet yawns away his day in White's as if he were a millionnaire; the one can support his _far niente_, the other cannot. There are gradations in everything, my love, but in nothing more than among the men, of the same set and the same style, whom one sees in Pall-Mall.
human
There are chestnut horses and horse-chestnuts, chevaliers and chevaliers d'industrie, rois and rois d'Yvetot, Carrutherses and Chandos Cheveleys! laughed Lady Cecil.
gpt
I understand, Lady Marabout. Il y a femmes et femmes--men about town and men about town, I shall learn all the classes and distinctions soon. But how is one to know the sheep that may be let into the fold from the wolves in sheep's clothing, that must be kept out of it? Your Ogre is really very distinguished-looking.
human
Distinguished? Oh yes, my love; but the most distinguished men are the most objectionable sometimes. I assure you, my dear Cecil, I have seen an elder son whom sometimes I could hardly have told from his own valet, and a younger of the same family with the style of a D'Orsay. Why, did I not this very winter, when I went to stay at Rochdale, take Fitzbreguet himself, whom I had not chanced to see since he was a child, for one of the men out of livery, and bid him bring Bijou's basket out of the carriage. I did indeed--_I_ who hate such mistakes more than any one! And Lionel, his second brother, has the beauty of an Apollo and the _air noble_ to perfection. One often sees it; it's through the doctrine of compensation, I suppose, but it's very perplexing, and causes endless _embrouillements_.
gpt
When the mammas fall in love with Lord Fitz's coronet, and the daughters with Lord Lionel's face, I suppose?
human
Exactly so, dear. As for knowing the sheep from the wolves, as you call them, went on Lady Marabout, sorting her embroidery silks,