"The world is full of apparently sane fools." Then he passed on to a further subject.

"You will re-open Wrayth, of course," he said.
"I wish my niece to be a Queen of Society, and to have her whole life arranged with due state.

I wish your family to understand that I appreciate the honor of the connection with them, and consider it a privilege, and a perfectly natural thing--since we are foreigners of whom you know nothing--that we should provide the necessary money for what we wish." Lord Tancred listened; he thought of his mother's similar argument at breakfast.
"You see," the financier went on reflectively, "in life, the wise man always pays willingly for what he really wants, as you are doing, for instance, in your blind taking of my niece.

Your old nobility in England is the only one of any consequence left in the world.

The other countries' system of the titles descending to all the younger sons, _ad infinitum_, makes the whole thing a farce after a while.