‘I will remember nothing that you do not wish.’

’I mean that if,—­if all the grandeurs of the Pallisers could consent to put up with poor me, if heaven were opened to me with a straight gate, so that I could walk out of our republic into your aristocracy with my head erect, with the stars and stripes waving proudly will I had been accepted into the shelter of the Omnium griffins,—­then I would call him—­’

‘There’s one Palliser would welcome you.’

‘Would you dear?  Then I will love you dearly.  May I call you Mary?’

‘Of course you may.’

’Mary is the prettiest name under the sun.  But Plantagenet is so grand!  Which of the kings did you branch off from?’

’I know nothing about it.  From none of them I should think.  There is some story about a Sir Guy, who was a king’s friend.  I never trouble myself about it.  I hate aristocracy.’

‘Do you, dear?’

‘Yes,’ said Mary, full of her own grievances.  ’It is an abominable bondage, and I do not see that it does any good at all.’

‘I think it is so glorious,’ said the American.  ’There is no such mischievous nonsense in the world as equality.  That is what father says.  What men ought to want is liberty.’

‘It is terrible to be tied up in a small circle,’ said the Duke’s daughter.

‘What do you mean, Lady Mary?’

’I thought you were to call me Mary.  What I mean is this.  Suppose that Silverbridge loves you better than all the world.’

‘I hope he does.  I think he does.’

‘And suppose he cannot marry you, because of his—­aristocracy?’

‘But he can.’

‘I thought you were saying yourself—­’

’Saying what?  That he could not marry me!  No indeed!  But that under certain circumstances I would not marry him.  You don’t suppose that I think he would be disgraced?  If so I would go away at once, and he should never again see my face or hear my voice.  I think myself good enough for the best man God every made.  But if others think differently, and those others are closely concerned with him and would be so closely concerned with me, as to trouble our joint lives;—­then will I neither subject him to such sorrow nor will I encounter it myself.’

‘It all comes from what you call aristocracy.’

’No, dear;—­but from the prejudices of an aristocracy.  To tell the truth, Mary, the most difficult a place is to get into, the more right of going in is valued.  If everybody could be a Duchess and a Palliser, I should not perhaps think so much about it.’

‘I thought it was because you loved him.’

’So I do.  I love him entirely.  I have said not a word of that to him;—­but I do, if I know at all what love is.  But if you love a star, the pride you have in your star will enhance your love.  Though you know that you must die of your love, still you must love your star.’

And yet Mary could not tell her tale in return.  She could not show the reverse picture:—­that she being a star was anxious to dispose of herself after the fashion of poor human rushlights.  It was not that she was ashamed of her love, but that she could not bring herself to yield altogether in reference to the great descent which Silverbridge would have to make.