‘Forgive me if I ask you a blunt question,’ said Peak, after hesitating.  ’Have you ever associated with women of the highest refinement?’

Earwaker laughed.

’I don’t know what that phrase means.  It sounds rather odd on your lips.’

’Well, women of the highest class of commoners.  With peeresses we needn’t concern ourselves.’

’You imagine that social precedence makes all that difference in women?’

’Yes, I do.  The daughter of a county family is a finer being than any girl who can spring from the nomad orders.’

’Even supposing your nomads produce a Rachel or a Charlotte Brontee?’

‘We are not talking of genius,’ Peak replied.

’It was irrelevant, I know.—­Well, yes, I have conversed now and then with what you would call well-born women.  They are delightful creatures, some of them, in given circumstances.  But do you think I ever dreamt of taking a wife drenched with social prejudices?’

Peak’s face expressed annoyance, and he said nothing.

‘A man’s wife,’ pursued Earwaker, ’may be his superior in whatever you like, except social position.  That is precisely the distinction that no woman can forget or forgive.  On that account they are the obstructive element in social history.  If I loved a woman of rank above my own she would make me a renegade; for her sake I should deny my faith.  I should write for the St. James’s Gazette, and at last poison myself in an agony of shame.’

A burst of laughter cleared the air for a moment, but for a moment only.  Peak’s countenance clouded over again, and at length he said in a lower tone: 

‘There are men whose character would defy that rule.’

’Yes—­to their own disaster.  But I ought to have made one exception.  There is a case in which a woman will marry without much regard to her husband’s origin.  Let him be a parson, and he may aim as high as he chooses.’

Peak tried to smile.  He made no answer, and fell into a fit of brooding.

‘What’s all this about?’ asked the journalist, when he too had mused awhile.  ‘Whose acquaintance have you been making?’

‘No one’s.’

The suspicion was inevitable.

’If it were true, perhaps you would be justified in mistrusting my way of regarding these things.  But it’s the natural tendency of my mind.  If I ever marry at all, it will be a woman of far higher birth than my own.’

’Don’t malign your parents, old fellow.  They gave you a brain inferior to that of few men.  You will never meet a woman of higher birth.’

’That’s a friendly sophism.  I can’t thank you for it, because it has a bitter side.’

But the compliment had excited Peak, and after a moment’s delay he exclaimed: 

’I have no other ambition in life—­no other!  Think the confession as ridiculous as you like; my one supreme desire is to marry a perfectly refined woman.  Put it in the correct terms:  I am a plebeian, and I aim at marrying a lady.’