"But to copy their virtues——"
"That isn't the point exactly," he interrupted. "I don't pretend that we have any more virtues of the homely sort, than the cottage folk, but certain things belong to us by right."
"Do you mean vices?" she queried, innocently.
"Well, no, not in our case; but they might be vices if copied by the lower classes. I'm afraid I can't explain myself very clearly. But things that would be quite proper for the best people to do, would be simply grotesque, or worse, if the common orders attempted them."
"Really, this is most interesting," she said, half-banteringly, half-seriously. "Now, out in our country we have no varying standards of right and wrong."
"Ah! well, that is because you have no aristocracy," he said, loftily.
"And if I were to marry you, Gervase, and become a lady of quality I should be judged, as it were, by a different set of laws."
"You would become Lady Tregony when I succeeded to the title."
She laughed. "That, I fear, is scarcely an answer to my question."
"Not a full answer, but you see there are so many things that cannot be explained."