My intimacy with you ought to be proof at any rate to you that I don't on that account set myself up above other fellows.

But when you come to talk of marriage, of course it is a serious thing." "But you have told me more than once that you have no objection on your own score." "Nor have I." "You are only saying what the Duke will think." "I am telling you that it is impossible, and I told you so before.
You and she will be kept apart, and so--" "And so she'll forget me." "Something of that kind." "Of course I have to trust to her for that.

If she forgets me, well and good." "She needn't forget you.

Lord bless me! you talk as though the thing were not done every day.

You'll hear some morning that she is going to marry some fellow who has a lot of money and a good position; and what difference will it make then whether she has forgotten you or not ?" It might almost have been supposed that the young man had been acquainted with his mother's history.
After this there was a pause, and there arose conversation about other things, and a cigar was smoked.