"There have been such brutes."
"Very well; then we will do without his divorce! We will do without the respectability that you think so much of."
"Nobody can do without it very long," she said, mildly. "But we won't argue about respectability; and I won't even ask you whether you will marry her, if she gets her divorce."
His indignation paused in sheer amazement. "No," he said. "I should hardly think that even you would venture to ask me such a question!"
"I will only ask you, my son, if you have thought how you would smirch her name by such a process of getting possession of her?"
"Oh," he said, despairingly, "what is the use of talking about it? I can't make you understand!"
"Have you considered that you will ruin Elizabeth?" she insisted.
"You may call happiness 'ruin,' if you want to, mother. We don't—she and I."
"I suppose you wouldn't believe me if I told you it wouldn't be happiness?"
Her question was too absurd to answer. Besides, he was determined not to argue with her; argument would only prolong this futile and distressing interview. So, holding in the leash of respect for her, contempt for her opinions, he listened with strained and silent patience to what she had to say of duty and endurance. It all belonged, he thought, to her generation and to her austere goodness; but from his point of view it was childish. When at last he spoke, in answer to an insistent question as to whether Elizabeth realized how society would regard her course, his voice as well as his words showed his entire indifference to her whole argument. "Yes," he said; "I have pointed out to Elizabeth the fact that though our course will be in accordance with a Law that is infinitely higher than the laws that you think so much of, there will be, as you say, people to throw mud at her."