"We came over in the _Mayflower_,
you know," she said.
"Really," said Sir Basil, all courteous interest.
"The Claremonts, you know," said Mrs. Potts, modestly, yet firmly, too. "My
father was in direct descent; we have it all worked out in our family
tree."
"Oh, really," said Sir Basil again.
"I've no doubt," said Mrs. Potts, "that your forebears and mine, Sir Basil,
were friends and comrades in the spacious times of good Queen Bess."
Imogen, at this, glanced swiftly at her mother; but she caught no trace of
wavering on that mild countenance.
"Oh, well, no," Sir Basil answered. "My people were very little country
squires in those days; we didn't have much to do with the Dukes of
Claremont. We only began to go up, you see, a good bit after you were on
the top."
Imogen fixed a calm but a very cold eye upon Mrs. Potts. She had heard
of the Dukes of Claremont for many years; so had everybody who knew Mrs.
Potts; they were an innocent, an ingrained illusion of the good lady's, but
to-day they seemed less innocent and more irritating than usual. Imogen
felt that she could have boxed Mrs. Potts's silly ears. In Sir Basil's
pleasant disclaimers, too, there was an echo of Miss Bocock's
matter-of-fact acknowledgments that seemed to set them both leagues away
from the Pottses and to make their likeness greater than their difference.
"Well, of course," Mrs. Potts was going on, her _pince-nez_ and all her
small features mingled, as it were, in the vividest glitter, "for me, I
confess, it's blood, above all and beyond all, that counts; and you and I,
Sir Basil, know that it is in the squirearchy that some of the best blood
in England is found.
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