James plays with the exact meaning of "the real thing" throughout the story's plot, which was suggested to him by George du Maurier. The Monarchs may be the real thing when it comes to country-house visits and drawing-room conversation, but Oronte and Miss Churm are just as much the genuine article for professional modeling. Late in the story the Monarchs desperately try to keep their jobs by actually becoming servants to the narrator, Miss Churm, and Oronte, in a superb example of Jamesian chiasmus.