Peak's face expressed annoyance, and he said nothing.
'A man's wife,' pursued Earwaker, 'may be his superior in whatever you like, except social position. That is precisely the distinction that no woman can forget or forgive. On that account they are the obstructive element in social history. If I loved a woman of rank above my own she would make me a renegade; for her sake I should deny my faith. I should write for the St. James's Gazette, and at last poison myself in an agony of shame.'
A burst of laughter cleared the air for a moment, but for a moment only. Peak's countenance clouded over again, and at length he said in a lower tone:
'There are men whose character would defy that rule.'
'Yes—to their own disaster. But I ought to have made one exception. There is a case in which a woman will marry without much regard to her husband's origin. Let him be a parson, and he may aim as high as he chooses.'
Peak tried to smile. He made no answer, and fell into a fit of brooding.
'What's all this about?' asked the journalist, when he too had mused awhile. 'Whose acquaintance have you been making?'
'No one's.'
The suspicion was inevitable.
'If it were true, perhaps you would be justified in mistrusting my way of regarding these things. But it's the natural tendency of my mind. If I ever marry at all, it will be a woman of far higher birth than my own.'