“Make up, our minds to it,” she cried. “How is that possible? Oh, Mr. Spears, I have always thought you so superior to anything of the kind. You would not take advantage of the confidence placed in you; you would not allow my boy, because of his admiration for your talents, to ruin himself, to compromise his position, to disappoint all our hopes!” She rose up and put out her hands, appealing--in the forgetfulness of personal despair--to his generosity, though it was against himself and his own child. The most courteous, the most considerate person will forget when it is their own dearest interests which are concerned. His fantastic distress about the grammar went out of the man’s mind. His forehead contracted, a gleam of anger came from his eyes. But he had no doubt as to having right on his side, and he answered with dignity. “Madam,” he said, “we had better understand each other. I don’t want your son any more than you want my daughter; but they have their rights, and if they like each other I will not interfere.” She was driven almost wild by this reply. “Sir William will never consent--he will never consent to it,” she cried. “That’s none of my business--nor my child’s,” said Spears. He forgot the respect with which she had inspired him. “Here’s the difference between your class and mine, my lady,” he said with some scorn. “I consider the one thing needful in a marriage is love--on both sides. In our rank of life we don’t consider much more. We don’t ask questions about a girl’s ancestors or her fortune. Most likely there’s none of either sort, as in this case--but where there is love, what more is wanting? You will never persuade me to interfere.” “Marriage!” she repeated, in a voice of dismay. Of course that was what it must come to. She cast a look of dismay and almost horror at the girl who would, if this were so, take her own place, and hold her position in the world. She rose up suddenly from her rude seat, feeling that her limbs still failed her, but that in any case she could stay no longer here. “Oh, there is a great deal more wanting--a great deal more,” she cried. “Life is not so simple for us. A woman should know what she undertakes--what weight she will have on her shoulders. There are other things to be taken into consideration in such a life as ours.” “You think so,” said Spears. What he intended to be a superior smile dwindled into something like a sneer. He did not like this assertion, which he could not contradict. After all, it was true enough that his own existence was far more elementary and primitive than the other, and he did not like the thought.