"When I talked to your father," I tried to explain, "I saw chiefly the individual's side of the question of marriage. There is that side; but there's another. Marriage doesn't concern a man and a woman alone; it concerns a family--sometimes two." His cry came out with the explosive force of a slowly gathering groan. "Oh, rot, Alix!" He went on to expostulate: "Can't you see? If we were to go now and buy a license--and be married by the first clergyman we met--the family couldn't say a word." "Exactly; it's just what I do see. Since you want it I could force myself on them--the word is your father's--and they'd have no choice but to accept me." "Well, then?" "Hugh, dear, I--I can't do it that way." "Then what way could you do it?" "I'm not sure yet. I haven't thought of it. I only know in advance that even if I told you I'd marry you against--against all their wishes, I couldn't keep my promise in the end." "That is," he said, bitterly, "you think more of them than you do of me." I put my hand on his clasped fingers. "Nonsense. I--I love you. Don't you see I do? How could I help loving you when you've been so kind to me? But marriage is always a serious thing to a woman; and when it comes to marriage into a family that would look on me as a great misfortune--Hugh, darling, I don't see how I could ever face it." "I do," he declared, promptly. "It isn't so bad as you think. Families come round. There was Tracy Allen. Married a manicure. The Allens kicked up a row at first--wouldn't see Tracy and all that; but now--" "Yes, but, Hugh, I'm not a manicure." "You're a nursery governess." "By accident--and a little by misfortune. I wasn't a nursery governess when I first knew your sister." "But what difference does that make?" "It makes this difference: that a manicure would probably not think of herself as your equal. She'd expect coldness at first, and be prepared for it." "Well, couldn't you?" "No, because, you see, I'm your equal." He hunched his big shoulders impatiently. "Oh, Alix, I don't go into that. I'm a Socialist. I don't care what you are." "But you see I do. I don't want to expose myself to being looked down upon, and perhaps despised, for the rest of my life, because my family is quite as good as your own." He turned slowly from peering into the fog-bank to fix on me a look of which the tenderness and pity and incredulity seemed to stab me. I felt the helplessness of a sane person insisting on his sanity to some one who believes him mad. "Don't let us talk about those things, darling little Alix," he begged, gently. "Let's do the thing in style, like Tracy Allen, without any flummery or fluff. What's family--once you get away from the idea? When I sink it I should think that you could afford to do it too. If I take you as Tracy Allen took Libby Jaynes--that was her name, I remember now--not a very pretty girl--but if I take you as he took her, and you take me as she took him--"