"You are doing your very best to be pleasant this evening, and to ingratiate yourself! All the world are cads, are they not? except a small class. But it is quite true. Dick wants me to marry him." "You'd better, then, and go off on the tramp with him." "Perhaps I shall. But now, Humphrey, just to come back to ourselves. You continually insult my people--the class to which I belong--whenever you open your lips to speak. You have nothing but contempt for the people who work for their living, to whom I belong, and the people outside your own little circle. What do you want to marry me for? To make me happy by having to listen to this continual flood of contempt?" "Because, Molly"--the young man's artificial smile vanished and his pince-nez dropped--"because you are unlike everybody I know. None of the girls that I know are in the least like you. It pleases me to see you get indignant in defence of cads. It is like coming into a different atmosphere. I like to feel like coming down into another class. When we are married, I mean to go on living with my mother and her set, and to keep you apart--don't call it concealment--in some cottage away from the West End." "And my own people?" "Well, of course you won't have them to your house, I suppose. You can go and see some of them, if you like. You can't possibly want to see all----" "And my old friend Dick?" Humphrey turned red; he lost his repose; he flushed a vulgar red. "You shall not associate with that abominable cad, Molly. I shall forbid it altogether. You must promise----" "When I promise anything--perhaps----" "Then you know, Molly, you are soothing to the nerves. After seeing a bad picture, or hearing a bad piece of music, or listening to the cheerfulness of that--that BEAST they call Dick, only to watch you consoles, and to talk with you restores." "I am glad to have some qualities, in spite of my birth." "You have risen above that misfortune, Molly. If you would only refuse to know these people----" "Certainly not." "Give me your promise, Molly." She rose. "Well, at all events, I understand exactly what you mean. If you are so good as to marry me, I am to be hidden away; I am to serve as a soothing syrup for shattered nerves; I am to be an antidote to bad music; I am to be ashamed of my own people, and to give up my old friends. That is understood, is it not?" "We exchange sacrifices--mine the sacrifice of marrying beneath me; yours, that of giving up an ignoble troop of relations."