'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.' The last words were flung out defiantly. He quivered as he spoke, and his face flushed. 'I can't wish you success,' returned his friend, with a grave smile. 'You couldn't help it sounding like a sneer, if you did. The desire is hopeless, of course. It's because I know that, that I have made up my mind to travel for a year or two; it'll help me on towards the age when I shall regard all women with indifference. We won't talk about it any more.' 'One question. You seriously believe that you could find satisfaction in the life to which such a marriage would condemn you?' 'What life?' asked Peak, impatiently. 'That of an average gentleman, let us say, with house in town and country, with friends whose ruling motive was social propriety.' 'I could enjoy the good and throw aside the distasteful.' 'What about the distastefulness of your wife's crass conventionalism, especially in religion?' 'It would not be _crass_, to begin with. If her religion were genuine, I could tolerate it well enough; if it were merely a form, I could train her to my own opinions. Society is growing liberal--the best of it. Please remember that I have in mind a woman of the highest type our civilisation can produce.' 'Then you mustn't look for her in society!' cried Earwaker. 'I don't care; where you will, so long as she had always lived among people of breeding and high education, and never had her thoughts soiled with the vile contact of poverty.' Earwaker started up and reached a volume from a shelf. Quickly finding the desired page, he began to read aloud: 'Dear, had the world in its caprice Deigned to proclaim--I know you both, Have recognised your plighted troth, Am sponsor for you; live in peace!'---- He read to the end of the poem, and then looked up with an admiring smile. 'An ideal!' exclaimed Peak. 'An ideal akin to Murger's and Musset's grisettes, who never existed.'