allowed to enter upon some business that in three years’ time at least will place me where I can be the fit mate of any woman in this land, that is not worth her millions.”
“The woman for whom you have conceived this violent attachment is, then, above you in social position?”
“Yes, sir, or so considered, which amounts to the same thing, as far as I am concerned.”
“Bertram, I have lived longer than you and have seen much of both social and domestic life, and I tell you no woman is worth such a sacrifice on the part of a man as you propose. No woman of today, I should say; our mothers were different. The very fact that this young lady of whom you speak, obliges you to change your whole course of life in order to obtain her, ought to be sufficient to prove to you—” He stopped suddenly, arrested by the young man’s lifted hand. “She does not oblige you, then?”