'Of my own degree?'
'There are good women of all degrees.'
'Meaning that the good women of my own degree would probably decline.'
'My lord, if you will allow me to say so, I think you take too pessimistic a view of your own position. At first I thought your point of view too optimistic. Now you appear to have gone to the other extreme.'
'I didn't know then what I know now.'
'I don't understand.'
'Possibly not. You think me too pessimistic. Go on.'
'For one who has lived such a youth as your lordship it seems to me that one very desirable course is open.'
'Suicide?'
'No, my lord, not suicide.'