"'But do you realize the risks?' he asked gently, moving his papers and books about. 'I'm assuming, of course, that you are a gentleman,' he went on. 'Always best to marry in one's own class, don't you think?' He studied my card for a while and looked up suddenly. "'But suppose I've considered all that,' I suggested. 'Suppose it isn't so easy to know one's class, as you call it.' "'Oh,' said he, getting up and walking off into the darkness. 'Oh, if one is a gentleman ...' His voice tailed off. "'But,' I persisted, 'I'm not sure I _am_ a gentleman. Really I'm not.' "'What!' The solitary word came to me out of the shadows with startling distinctness. I nodded. I sat there on that spindley, gim-crack chair and stared contemptuously at the paraphernalia of learning and refinement on the great table, at the silver cigarette box, the bronze inkstand, the sphinxes and scarabs and cenotaphs, the bits of papyrus under glass, the books and magnifying glasses. Stared at them and defied them. I nodded. "'It is a fact,' I said. 'I have been brought up in a genteel position and I don't consider the whole business to amount to a heap of beans.' "I could hear him walking to and fro, and presently, as my eyes grew accustomed, I made him out, a tall phantom moving in front of other motionless phantoms. I became aware, too, of a warmth coming from that quarter and saw him stoop and open the damper of a closed stove, a studio stove, I think it was. "'Then what can it matter to you what her parents were?' he demanded, straightening up and coming into the light. "'I didn't say I wasn't respectable,' I told him, 'as well as curious. Anybody would be that.' "He admitted that was so, and came and sat down. "'The girl was born at sea, on a ship,' he observed slowly. "'Well,' I said, 'what of that? So was I.' "'Oh, is that so?' He looked at me again in his nervous way. Lit a cigarette and contemplated the smoke.