Then she let the silence fall between them.
"You are asking me to do a great deal."
"It seems a very little thing to me, so far as you are concerned; to us--to me--of course, it is a great thing; it means our family, our name, my father, my mother, myself--leaving Dick out of it altogether."
Eades turned away in pain. It was evident that she had said her all, and that he must speak.
"You forget one other thing," he said presently.
"What?"
"The rights of society." He was conscious of a certain inadequacy in his words; they sounded to him weak, and not at all as it seemed they should have sounded. She did not reply at once, but he knew that she was looking at him. Was that look of hers a look of scorn?
"I do not care one bit for the rights of society," she said. He knew that she spoke with all her spirit. But she softened almost instantly and added, "I do care, of course, for its opinion."
Eades was not introspective enough to realize his own superlative regard for society's opinion; it was easier to cover this regard with words about its rights.
"But society has rights," he said, "and society has placed me here to see those rights conserved."