“It is the only guide I recognize.  If you are going to argue the question, and your arguments are to prevail, they must be addressed to my self-interest.”

“I cannot think you quite mean that, Mr. Conolly.”

“Well, waive the point for the present:  I am open to conviction.  You know what my mind is.  I have not changed it since I saw your father this morning.  You think I am wrong?”

“Not wrong.  I do not say for a moment that you are wrong.  I——­”

“Mistaken.  Ill-advised.  Any term you like.”

“I certainly believe that you are mistaken.  Let me urge upon you first the fact that you are causing a daughter to disobey her father.  Now that is an awful fact.  May I—­appealing to that righteousness in which I am sure you are not naturally deficient—­ask you whether you have reflected on that fact?”

“It is not half so awful to me as the fact of a father forcing his daughter’s inclinations.  However, awful is hardly the word for the occasion.  Let us come to business, Mr. Lind.  I want to marry your sister because I have fallen in love with her.  You object.  Have you any other motive than aristocratic exclusiveness?”

“Indeed, you quite mistake.  I have no such feeling.  We are willing to treat you with every possible consideration.”

“Then why object?”

“Well, we are bound to look to her happiness.  We cannot believe that it would be furthered by an unsuitable match.  I am now speaking to you frankly as a man of the world.”

“As a man of the world you know that she has a right to choose for herself.  You see, our points of view are different.  On Sundays, for instance, you preach to a highly privileged audience at your church in Belgravia; whilst I lounge here over my breakfast, reading Reynold’s Newspaper.  I have not many social prejudices.  Although a workman, I dont look on every gentleman as a bloodsucker who seizes on the fruits of my labor only to pursue a career of vice.  I will even admit that there are gentlemen who deserve to be respected more than the workmen who have neglected all their opportunities—­slender as they are—­of cultivating themselves a little.  You, on the other hand, know that an honest man’s the noblest work of God; that nature’s gentlemen are the only real gentlemen; that kind hearts are more than coronets, and simple faith than Norman blood, and so forth.  But when your approval of these benevolent claptraps is brought to such a practical test as the marriage of your sister to a workman, you see clearly enough that they do not establish the suitability of personal intercourse between members of different classes.  That being so, let us put our respective philosophies of society out of the question, and argue on the facts of this particular case.  What qualifications do you consider essential in a satisfactory brother-in-law?”

“I am not bound to answer that; but, primarily, I should consider it necessary to my sister’s happiness that her husband should belong to the same rank as she.”