‘If you mean to say that I am thinking of a mercenary marriage for Elly----’ said Mrs. Egerton. John took no notice of this interruption. He went on with what he was saying. ‘Now, I mean to be well off,’ he said. ‘I am doing well already, and I mean to get on. What does it matter what my grandfather was, if I am able to live as gentlemen do, and to think as gentlemen do, and to maintain--those who belong to me.’ He would not say ‘my wife--’ but he held his head high, as if with the pride of having done so, and looked at Elly; and one quick, bright flash of happiness and consciousness went over both faces at the same moment. ‘I am only an engineer,’ he said, ‘but it’s a fine profession, and when one succeeds one grows rich. And I mean to succeed. My grandfather was not one to be ashamed of, whatever he was. And if it is said that I’m not a gentleman,’ said John, with another darker flush of self-assertion, ‘it’s an insult to Mr. Cattley, and even to this house where I have been allowed to come, and where such an idea was never hinted at before.’ ‘Oh, Jack!’ cried Mrs. Egerton horrified, clasping her hands in deprecation. ‘I never said that. I never thought it. It is only that you are not in the same sphere.’ ‘Would you say so if I were at the head of my firm?’ said John, ‘if I were making thousands a year; if I had works going on all over the world? I shall be if you will give me time. Would you say then that I was not of the same sphere?’ ‘Yes,’ said Elly, quick as lightning, taking the words with fine scorn out of her aunt’s mouth; ‘for, of course, it would not be likely then that you would come to a poor little village to ask for a country girl like me.’ Percy had been standing all this time with his back to the belligerents, looking fixedly out of the window. His back was as uncertain and embarrassed a back as ever man had. It gave his aunt no support at all. There was something in the aspect of his shoulders shrugged up to his ears, and his elbows sunk with the plunging of his hands into his pockets, that took all courage out of her. Percy, who had been so much more strenuous on this question than Aunt Mary herself, who had undertaken to speak to John! And now, here he stood, taking no notice, gazing out of the window! When it came to this point, however, he turned round, not looking at anyone, his eyebrows pulled down over his eyes.