The thing for him to do was to get rich and hold his own--to build up a seeming of virtue and dignity which would pass muster for the genuine thing.

Force would do that.

Quickness of wit.

And he had these.

"I satisfy myself," was his motto; and it might well have been emblazoned upon any coat of arms which he could have contrived to set forth his claim to intellectual and social nobility.
But this matter of Aileen was up for consideration and solution at this present moment, and because of his forceful, determined character he was presently not at all disturbed by the problem it presented.