"Let me explain. You see, when one of us marries a woman of his own class--'Prinzessen, Comtessen, Serene English Altessen,' as Svengali called them--he usually gets a partner more--ah--hidebound, I think you call it--than himself--a greater stickler for precedent and tradition and position and etiquette and elegant leisure, and all that sort of thing. Whatever liberal ideas he may have had, he finds he must abandon or, at least, suppress, if there is to be peace between his wife and him. It is only those who are so fortunate as to meet and win exactly the right woman _out_ of their class who get the incentive. You understand, now?" "Yes," said Susie, with a queer catch in her voice. "Yes, I think I do." "So," he added, with a little bitter laugh, "you see why we others look askance at these exceptions. In the first place they have preferred to step down out of their rank for a wife--that deals a blow at the tradition, and every blow weakens it; in the second place, they have left some noble lady husbandless, for your noble ladies seldom so far forget their rank as to marry out of it, though that may be because the men never permit them to--again an injury to us as a class; and, finally, they are mixing with the world, they are meeting other men face to face, as equals, they are claiming no merit because of birth, no authority because of rank; they are, perhaps, even working with their hands. Whereas our business is to keep aloof from the world, to maintain a barrier of caste between ourselves and other men, for they must not suspect that we are as imperfect as they--that we have the same appetites and passions, the same defects and meannesses. Our business is to rule over them, to require their obedience because God so wills it. We tremble when we see the apostates cast aside their rank and descend into the world's arena, for we fear that the people, finding them at close view only human, may come at last to believe that the right by which we rule is not, after all, divine. Then they will tear down the barrier of caste, strip us of the privileges of rank, and proclaim the absurdity that all men are equal. And I might add, we are jealous of the exceptions, because they are happy. Marriages of state are seldom love matches; the kind which furnish the incentives are always so." To all of which Susie had listened with bated breath, only glancing up once or twice to study her companion's face. It was a lifting of the curtain, a revelation of the heart, which left her deeply moved. "You don't seem to care for the tradition," she said, at last. "Oh, yes, I do; it would be untrue to pretend otherwise. Only, it has occurred to me quite recently that merely to inherit a position is not quite enough. A man should try to deserve it" "And you're going to try?" asked Susie, looking at him with something very like adoration in her eyes.