“I shouldn’t have supposed so.”
“But it is, Chicknell. She will stay with me because I can administer to her vanity, and her husband cannot. Now do you understand?”
“If it be so I am sorry for it, my lord. But assuming it is—I will assume you are better informed on the subject than myself—assuming it is, that is no reason for her being so tempted, no reason for her to be estranged from the husband she loves, or did love, I suppose.”
“Yes, I believe she did and, indeed, does.”
“Well, then, it seems an act of injustice, not to say cruelty, to separate man and wife by any such means.”
“There is one thing you and I can’t agree upon, Chicknell.”
“What is that, my lord?”
“You are a radical, and are a self-elected champion of the lower orders. I am not. I have no sympathy with people of that order. You have, I suppose.”
“I have sympathy with every class, high and low, if they be honest and good members of their class.”
“Enough of this!” exclaimed the old nobleman, angrily.