whom you distinctly disapprove?"

"Disapprove! Of Tita! Dearest Maurice, what an idea!"

"We won't go into it," says Maurice, with a gesture of
ill-suppressed disgust. "I know your opinion of her. I beg to say,
however, I do not share it. Badly as I shall come out of this
transaction, I should like you to remember that I both admire and
like Miss Bolton."

"I know, dearest boy, I know," says Lady Rylton, in the tone one
would use to an acute sufferer. "It is very noble of you, Maurice.
It is a sacrifice. I felt sometimes I had no right to demand----"

"The sacrifice is hers," says he shortly, gloomily.

His eyes are bent upon the ground.

"Hers! That little upst---- that poor unsophisticated child! My dear
Maurice, why run away with things? Of course she was charmed,
enchanted, _flattered_, in that you admired her so much as to ask
her to be your wife."

"She was not," says Maurice flatly.

"Exactly what I should have expected from such a----" Lady Rylton
checks herself in her fury. "From such an innocent creature,"
substitutes she. "But for all that, I shall consider how great is
the sacrifice you have made, Maurice--how you have given up the
happiness of your life to preserve the old name."