She was a white character; but even the whiteness of ermine gains by being necked with blackness.  “How can he treat me with so little consideration?  It is just as if he had said:  ’Good morning, mother.  I am going to disgrace the family by my marriage, but I know you will be delighted—–­good morning.’”

“You forget that Dent does not think he will disgrace the family.  He said you would be proud of her.”

“Well, when the day comes for me to be proud of this, there will not be much left to be ashamed of.  Rowan, for once I shall interfere.”

“How can you interfere?”

“Then you must:  you are his guardian.”

“I shall not be his guardian by the autumn.  Dent has arranged this perfectly, mother, as he always arranges everything.”

She returned to her point.  “But he must be kept from making such a mistake!  Talk to him as a man.  Advise him, show him that he will tie a millstone around his neck, ruin his whole life.  I am willing to leave myself out and to forget what is due me, what is due you, what is due the memory of his father and of my father:  for his own sake he must not marry this girl.”

He shook his head slowly.  “It is settled, mother,” he added consolingly, “and I have so much confidence in Dent that I believe what he says:  we shall be proud of her when we know her.”

She sat awhile in despair.  Then she said with fresh access of conviction:  “This is what comes of so much science:  it always tends to make a man common in his social tastes.  You need not smile at me in that pitying way, for it is true:  it destroys aristocratic feeling; and there is more need of aristocratic feeling in a democracy than anywhere else:  because it is the only thing that can be aristocratic.  That is what science has done for Dent!  And this girl I—­the public school has tried to make her uncommon, and the Girl’s College has attempted, to make her more uncommon; and now I suppose she actually thinks she is uncommon:  otherwise she would never have imagined that she could marry a son of mine.  Smile on, I know I amuse you!  You think I am not abreast of the times.  I am glad I am not.  I prefer my own.  Dent should have studied for the church—­with his love of books, and his splendid mind, and his grave, beautiful character.  Then he would never have thought of marrying beneath him socially; he would have realized that if he did, he could never rise.  Once in the church and with the right kind of wife, he might some day have become a bishop:  I have always wanted a bishop in the family.  But he set his heart upon a professorship, and I suppose a professor does not have to be particular about whom he marries.”

“A professor has to be particular only to please himself—­and the woman.  His choice is not regulated by salaries and congregations.”

She returned to her point:  “You breed fine cattle and fine sheep, and you try to improve the strain of your setters.  You know how you do it.  What right has Dent to injure his children in the race for life by giving them an inferior mother?  Are not children to be as much regarded in their rights of descent as rams and poodles?”