"Suppose that, so far as she was concerned, it was simply all over with you."
"Oh, that is easy enough. Well?"
"Would you marry her, if——"
"Alack, it had to come! Yes. If——?"
"If she was a—a tremendous contrast to her people?"
"Oh, that is it, is it?" Melville sprang to his feet, and spoke very emphatically. "No, my dear fellow, upon my soul, I would not! They grow into their heredity with all the certainty of fate. I would rather marry a gauche and unattractive girl because her mother was charming."
This was rather beside the point, but it depressed Dudley, and he sighed.
"But suppose—one has either to rave or make use of conventional expressions—suppose she was infinitely bright, and attractive, and womanly?"
"Oh, they are all that, you know."
"If you knew her——"