"Isn't it a good reason? All is over with me. If Lady Ogram had lived to make her new will, I should have been provided for. Now I am penniless and hopeless."
"But, if she had lived, you would have had to marry Miss Bride."
Dyce made a sorrowful gesture.
"No. She would never have consented, even if I could have brought myself to such a sacrifice. In any case, I was doomed."
"But—"
Iris paused, biting her lip.
"You were going to say?"
"Only—that I suppose you would have been willing to marry that girl, the niece."
"I will answer you frankly." He spoke in the softest tone and his look had a touching candour. "You, better than anyone, know the nature of my ambition. You know it is not merely personal. One doesn't like to talk grandiloquently, but, alone with you, there is no harm in saying that I have a message for our time. We have reached a point in social and political evolution where all the advance of modern life seems to be imperilled by the growing preponderance of the multitude. Our need is of men who are born to guide and rule, and I feel myself one of these. But what can I do as long as I am penniless? And so I answer you frankly: yes, if May Tomalin had inherited Lady Ogram's wealth, I should have felt it my duty to marry her."
Iris listened without a smile. Lashmar had never spoken with a more convincing show of earnestness.