Dimly it had dawned upon
her more than once that Rags regarded certain speeches and ways of
hers as "snobbish"--speeches and ways which to her had seemed
aristocratic. Neither Rags nor Eileen nor Lady Raygan had ever so much
as mentioned the word "snob" in connection with any member of the
Rolls family or their friends. But they had lightly let it drop in
connection with others, and Ena's extreme sensitiveness on the subject
her extreme desire to be everything that Raygan liked, made her quick
to put two and two together.
She began to see that many of her favourite tricks at home and
abroad--with servants, with her parents, with acquaintances, and the
public in general--were not proofs, in Raygan's eyes, that she was to
the manor born, rather the contrary, and that hurt. She was straining
to understand and observe the finest _nuances_. Never had it been more
difficult than to-day, during this visit she detested to the great
department store of Peter Rolls. If she had declined to come, that
would have been snobbish. If, having come, she refused the "glad hand"
to one of her father's shop girls whom Raygan chose to greet as an
equal--that, too, would be snobbish.
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