“Why?” he ejaculates. “Why?” “Why?” repeats his wife. “Oh, Cicely!” “Well, why?” she says, a little impatiently. “If Mr. Bertram likes to live a poor man instead of becoming a rich one, what business is it of anybody’s?” “Oh Lord!” sighs her host. “Good heavens, Cicely!” cries his wife. “You might as well ask what does a man’s suicide matter to his family?” “Suicide is a disgrace, or at least it is esteemed so. This is an honour.” “An honour!” echo both her host and hostess in one breath. “A very rare honour,” she replies, “to have a relative who in these days has the courage and loyalty to principle to refuse a fortune.” Southwold is too utterly amazed and shocked to have any power to answer her. “My dear girl, this is very far-fetched,” says his wife. “You are talking great nonsense, and approving great folly. I cannot believe that even my nephew Wilfrid will be capable of adhering to such a crazy and thankless decision.” “I am sure he will adhere to it,” says Cicely Seymour, warmly. “At least if he do not I shall be very mistaken in him. Do you think,” she adds with indignation, “that his principles are mere sugared beignets, mere frothy soufflées of eggs and cream?” “His principles!” cries Southwold, with a snort like an angry horse. “Do you mean those preposterous tomfooleries with which he entertained us yesterday?” “I mean the doctrines taught in his own journal. He is an individualist, an altruist, a collectivist, a Mazzïnist, a Tolstoi-ist. How could such a man with any consistency, with any decency, accept a great fortune?” “My dear Cicely,” said Lady Southwold, with unkind incisiveness. “Only a great fortune could get such opinions forgiven to him; and as he is going to marry a washerwoman’s daughter, if what you heard in the Park is true, he will certainly never get her into society on any income less than thirty thousand a year!” “He will not want to get her into society. Nobody gathers a dog-rose to put it under a forcing-frame.” “You are very epigrammatic, my dear, but I am afraid you have not much more common sense than Wilfrid Bertram.” “John,” she adds to her husband, “do you think it would be of any use if I went and tried to persuade him to suspend his decision?” “I don’t think it would be the slightest,” replies her lord. “But you might try. There would be no harm in trying. Tell him it’s flying in the face of Providence.” “I am afraid he doesn’t believe in Providence!” says Lady Southwold, with a sigh. Twenty minutes later she returns to her morning-room with a discouraged air, and draws off her gloves.