"Oh, we needn't go into that," Grafton interrupted him. "We treat as equals there, with the advantage on your side, if it's anywhere."
"But, pardon me; we must go into it. It is essential. What more can I do than to offer my honourable name to your daughter? It means much to me. If I honour it, as I do, I honour her."
"I know you honour her, in your way. It isn't our way. I ask you another question of the sort you say one gentleman ought not to ask of another. Should you consider it dishonouring your name, or dishonouring the woman you've given it to, to make love to somebody else, after you've been married a year or two, if the fancy takes you?"
Lassigny rose to his feet. "Mr. Grafton," he said, "I don't understand you. I think it is you who are dishonouring your own daughter, whom I love, and shall always love."
Grafton, without rising, held up a finger at him. "How am I dishonouring her?" he asked with insistence. "Tell me why you say I'm dishonouring her."
Lassigny looked down at him. "To me," he said slowly, "she is the most beautiful and the sweetest girl on the earth. Don't you think so too? I thought you did."
Grafton rose. "You've said it; it's her beauty," he said more quickly. "If she loses that,—as she will lose it with her youth,—she loses you. I'm not going to let her in for that kind of disillusionment."
Lassigny was very stiff now, and entirely un-English in manner, and even in appearance. "Pardon me, Mr. Grafton, for having misunderstood your point of view. If it is a Puritan you want for your daughter I fear I am out of the running. I withdraw my application to you for her hand."
"That's another thing," said Grafton, as Lassigny turned to leave him. "I wouldn't let a daughter of mine marry a Catholic."