“No good ever comes of marrying out of your own class,” continued he. “I thought you had more pride. I know you have. You were joking. Let’s hear no more about it.”
“He is not a fortune hunter,” said Beatrice in a numb way.
“I tell you he is!” cried Richmond violently. “The impudent hound! No wonder he tried to work off that picture of his as a gift!” Richmond laughed with a sneer. “The impudent puppy!”
“He is a great artist,” said Beatrice. “D’Artois says so.”
“What of that? What’s an artist? What standing has he got? But don’t talk about it. I’ll not be able to contain myself.” He faced her sharply. “Look at me!”
The girl turned her eyes slowly, with her wounded soul’s suffering revealed in them. But Richmond did not see people ever; he saw only his own purposes. “How far has this gone?”
She eyed him steadily long enough for him to get the sense of an immovable obstacle squarely across the path of his indomitable will. “It has gone so far that I’ll not marry anyone else,” she said, neither hot nor cold. “I couldn’t.”
“Don’t let me hear that kind of talk!” shouted Richmond, in his rage forgetting the groom. “You are going to marry a man who can make you happy—a man in your own station—a man who has family and standing.”
“But you said Roger was of the only true aristocracy,” pleaded Beatrice. “You said——”
“And a fool I was, to talk to a silly, little idiot of an ignorant girl with no experience of life, with no ability to understand what I was talking about. I wasn’t discussing a husband for you. I wasn’t discussing the world as it is. I wasn’t discussing people of our station. I wasn’t discussing fortune-hunting artists. It shows how little sense you’ve got, that you could twist what I said into an appeal to you to marry an impudent fortune hunter!”