"At any rate it is punished more severely than the others," she said.
"Yes," he assented thoughtfully. "But," and he smiled, "Lord Auchester does not contemplate marrying his cook, does he?"
"His cook? No; but he is in danger of marrying almost as far beneath him!" The retort flashed from her with hot hauteur. "Mr. Duncombe, when a man of Lord Auchester's station marries beneath him he is as utterly ruined, his life is as completely wrecked, as if he had committed forgery or enlisted as a common soldier."
He leaned back and listened with sedate politeness, wondering whither all this was leading, and what it was she would ask him to do.
"A man of Lord Auchester's rank has only one life—the social one. He has no business, no profession to fall back upon, to employ his thoughts, to engross and solace him. He must mix in the world to which he belongs, and he can only do so as an equal with his fellows. When he marries he is expected to take for a wife a lady of his own rank, or at any rate, a lady who is accepted as such in the circle to which he belongs. She must be one whom his friends can receive and visit, one of whom neither he nor they will be ashamed. His life may then continue in its old course; he will still have his friends and relatives round him, still have his place in the world, his niche, be it a high or a moderately high one, and all will be well with him."
She paused for breath, and put her hand to smooth back the delicate silken hair from her fair forehead.
"But if he should so far forget himself and all he owes to society as to marry beneath him—then, as I say he is utterly wrecked and undone. His friends will not receive his wife, or if they do it is with a coldness which she and he cannot fail to notice and resent. He sees them look pityingly, scornfully upon the woman he has made his wife, and he feels that he cannot take her amongst them. So he drifts from his own class, and either sinks into the one below it—where he is wretchedly miserable, or lives like a hermit. In the latter case he has plenty of time in which to get tired of his life and of the woman who has, in all innocence, severed him from all his old associates and, still in all innocence, has degraded him. The result, be it quick or slow in coming, is invariably the same. He is always thinking of the sacrifice he has made in marrying her, she is always conscious that he is so thinking, and sooner or later they grow to weary of and hate each other. She has ruined him, wrecked his life, and both know it! I am not speaking by theory; I have seen it, seen it in half a dozen cases, and I say that a man had better throw himself into the Thames than marry beneath him."
She dropped back in her low chair and put her hand to her head. She had talked swiftly, passionately, and her brow was burning.
Ralph Duncombe looked up.
"All you say is very true, no doubt, Lady Eleanor. And Lord Auchester——."