"Surely not," smiled Ashley.
The prejudices were crying out in pain as Bob's newborn idea crushed and mangled them.
"But the governor's so against all that sort of thing," Bob complained. Then he looked up at his friend. "That's mostly your fault," he added, with an awkward laugh.
"My dear Bob, the cases are not parallel."
"Well, Miss Soames hasn't got a husband, of course."
There was no use in being angry, or even in representing that the remark which had seemed so obvious to Bob was a considerable liberty.
"Imagine her with a thousand husbands, and still the cases couldn't be parallel."
"She's not on the stage."
"And if she were, the distinctions run by people, not by professions," said Ashley.