"Yes, but, Hugh, I'm not a manicure."
"You're a nursery governess."
"By accident—and a little by misfortune. I wasn't a nursery governess when I first knew your sister."
"But what difference does that make?"
"It makes this difference: that a manicure would probably not think of herself as your equal. She'd expect coldness at first, and be prepared for it."
"Well, couldn't you?"
"No, because, you see, I'm your equal."
He hunched his big shoulders impatiently. "Oh, Alix, I don't go into that. I'm a Socialist. I don't care what you are."
"But you see I do. I don't want to expose myself to being looked down upon, and perhaps despised, for the rest of my life, because my family is quite as good as your own."
He turned slowly from peering into the fog-bank to fix on me a look of which the tenderness and pity and incredulity seemed to stab me. I felt the helplessness of a sane person insisting on his sanity to some one who believes him mad.