Page:The time spirit; a romantic tale (IA timespiritromant00snaiiala).pdf/134

 as always in these close corporations, they haven't the art of seeing things as they are."

Mary shook a troubled head, but the argument seemed to find its way home.

"The truth of the matter is," he suddenly declared, "you are afraid of Bridport House."

Without shame she confessed that Bridport House was bound to be very hostile, and was there not every reason for such an attitude? Jack, however, would not yield an inch upon that count, or on any other if it came to that. He was a primitive creature in whom the call of the blood was paramount. Moreover, he was a very tenacious fellow. And these arguments of hers, strongly urged and boldly stated, did not affect his point of view. The ban of Fortune was purely artificial, it could not be defended. She was fain, therefore, to carry the war to the enemy's country. But if she gently hinted a change of egotism he countered it astutely with the subtler one of sentimentalism. Each confessed the other partially right, but so far from clearing the air it seemed to make the whole matter more complex. The upshot was that he called upon her to find a valid reason, otherwise he refused point-blank to give her up.

"Just think," he said, tracing her name on the gravel with a walking-stick, "how hollow the whole business is. How many of Uncle Albert's 'push' have married American wives without a question? And why do they, when they wouldn't think of giving English girls of the same class an equal chance? In the first place, for the sake of the dollars, in the second, because it is so easy for them to shed their relations and forget their origin."

But so wide was the gulf between their points of view