The aristocracy, said Mr Moffat, were not a people to allow the light of their countenance to shine forth without looking for a _quid pro quo_, for some compensating value.
In all their intercourse with the Dunstables and Moffats, they would expect a payment.

It was for the Dunstables and Moffats to see that, at any rate, they did not pay more for the article they got than its market value.
They way in which she, Miss Dunstable, and he, Mr Moffat, would be required to pay would be by taking each of them some poor scion of the aristocracy in marriage; and thus expending their hard-earned wealth in procuring high-priced pleasures for some well-born pauper.
Against this, peculiar caution was to be used.

Of course, the further induction to be shown was this: that people so circumstanced should marry among themselves; the Dunstables and the Moffats each with the other, and not tumble into the pitfalls prepared for them.
Whether these great lessons had any lasting effect on Miss Dunstable's mind may be doubted.

Perhaps she had already made up her mind on the subject which Mr Moffat so well discussed.

She was older than Mr Moffat, and, in spite of his two years of parliamentary experience, had perhaps more knowledge of the world with which she had to deal.