"And yet you think I ought to hand it out."
"I was thinking rather of a kind of noblesse oblige—"
"In which all the noblesse must be mine."
"Not exactly that. In which perhaps the noblesse should be ours. Even if I should marry a poor man, I can't help being a Collingham, a member of a family with large ideas and a large way of living."
"Yes; but, you see, you'd be giving them up."
"You can't give up what's been bred into you. And in my case I should be bringing the man—you must let me say it, dad—I should be bringing the man I—I love—so little—"
"He's probably counting on a great deal. Poor men who marry rich men's daughters generally do."
"I was going to say that while he'd be giving me so much, all I could offer him would be money; and if I didn't bring that—"
"Well? Go on."
"If I didn't bring that, I should feel so humiliated before him—"