“The definition of which,” said Dr. Ramsay, “is a man who’s neither a farmer nor a gentleman.”
“I forget what your father was?” said Bertha, who remembered perfectly well.
“My father was a farmer,” replied Dr. Ramsay, with some heat, “and, thank God! he made no pretence of being a gentleman. He worked with his own hands; I’ve seen him often enough with a pitchfork, turning over a heap of manure, when no one else was handy.”
“I see,” said Bertha.
“But my father can have nothing to do with it; you can’t marry him because he’s been dead these thirty years, and you can’t marry me because I’ve got a wife already.”
Miss Ley, amused at the doctor’s bluntness, concealed a smile; but Bertha, getting rather angry, thought him singularly rude.
“And what have you against him?” she asked.
“If you want to make a fool of yourself, he’s got no right to encourage you. He knows he isn’t a fit match for you.”
“Why not, if I love him?”
“Why not!” shouted Dr. Ramsay. “Because he’s the son of a farmer—like I am—and you’re Miss Ley of Court Leys. Because a man in that position without fifty pounds to his back doesn’t make love on the sly to a girl with a fortune.”