"If you will say that such a law is dominant among your class, and that it is one to which you would submit yourself, I will not repudiate it. But you shall not induce me to consent to it, by even a false idea as to the softer delicacy of the sex. That softer delicacy, with its privileges and duties, shall be made to stand for what it is worth, and to occupy its real ground. If you use it for other mock purposes, then I will quarrel with you." It was thus that she had spoken, and he understood it all. "I am not brought in question," he said slowly. "Cannot you put it to yourself as though you were brought in question? You will at any rate admit that my argument is just." "I hardly know. I must think of it. Such a marriage on my part would not outrage my stepmother, as would that of my sister." "Outrage! You speak, Lord Hampstead, as though your mother would think that your sister would have disgraced herself as a woman!" "I am speaking of her feelings,--not of mine. It would be different were I to marry in the same degree." "Would it? Then I think that perhaps I had better counsel George not to go to Hendon Hall." "My sister is not there. They are all in Germany." "He had better not go where your sister will be thought of." "I would not quarrel with your son for all the world." "It will be better that you should. Do not suppose that I am pleading for him." That, however, was what he did suppose, and that was what she was doing. "I have told him already that I think that the prejudices will be too hard for him, and that he had better give it up before he adds to his own misery, and perhaps to hers. What I have said has not been in the way of pleading,--but only as showing the ground on which I think that such a marriage would be inexpedient. It is not that we, or our sister, are too bad or too low for such contact; but that you, on your side, are not as yet good enough or high enough." "I will not dispute that with you, Mrs. Roden. But you will give him my message?" "Yes; I will give him your message." Then Lord Hampstead, having spent a full hour in the house, took his departure and rode away. "Just an hour," said Clara Demijohn, who was still looking out of Mrs. Duffer's window. "What can they have been talking about?" "I think he must be making up to the widow," said Mrs. Duffer, who was so lost in surprise as to be unable to suggest any new idea. "He'd never have come with saddle horses to do that. She wouldn't be taken by a young man spending his money in that fashion. She'd like saving ways better. But they're his own horses, and his own man, and he's no more after the widow than he's after me," said Clara, laughing. "I wish he were, my dear."