“It is very strange,” the girl responded, wonderingly, “how differently you think about it.  I should have supposed I was acting very unwisely indeed if I loved Arthur; everyone would have told me of his poverty and obscurity, and of how I must give up my social career.”

“I think differently, perhaps,” Mr. Howard said, “because I have lived so much alone.  I have come to know that happiness is a thing of one’s own heart, and not of externals; the questions I should ask about a marriage would not be of wealth and position.  If you really wish to seek the precious things of the soul, I should think you would be very glad to prove it by some sacrifice; and I know that two hearts are brought closer, and all the memories of life made dearer, by some such trial in the early days.  People sneer at love in a cottage, but I am sure that love that could wish to live anywhere else is not love.  And as to the social career, a person who has once come to know the life of the heart soon ceases to care for any kind of life that is heartless; a social career is certainly that, and in comparison very vulgar indeed.”

Helen looked a little puzzled, and repeated the word “vulgar” inquiringly.  Mr Howard smiled.

“That is the word I always use when I am talking about high life,” he said, laughing.  “You may hurl the words ‘selfish’ and ‘worldly’ at it all you please, and never reach a vital spot; but the word ‘vulgar’ goes straight to the heart.”

“You must explain to me why it is that,” said Helen, with so much seriousness that the other could not help smiling again.

“Perhaps I cannot make anyone else see the thing as I do,” was his reply.  “And yet it seems rery simple.  When a man lives a while in his own soul, he becomes aware of the existence of a certain spiritual fact which gives life all its dignity and meaning; he learns that this sacred thing demands to be sought for, and worshiped; and that the man who honors it and seeks it is only hailed as gentleman, and aristocrat, and that he who does not honor it and seek it is vulgar, tho he be heir of a hundred earls, and leader of all society, and lord of millions.  Every day that one lives in this presence that I speak of, he discovers a little more how sacred a thing is true nobility, and how impertinent is the standard that values men for the wealth they win, or for the ribbons they wear, or for anything else in the world.  I fancy that you, if you came once to love your friend, would find it very easy to do without the admiration of those who go to make up society; they would come to seem to you very trivial and empty people, and afterwards, perhaps, even very cruel and base.”

Mr. Howard stopped; but then seeing that Helen was gazing at him inquiringly once more he added, gravely, “One could be well content to let vain people strut their little hour and be as wonderful as they chose, if it were not for the painful fact that they are eating the bread of honest men, and that millions are toiling and starving in order that they may have ease and luxury.  That is such a very dreadful thing to know that sometimes one can think of nothing else, and it drives him quite mad.”