think how much
worse the disappointment he was meditating must be, and feeling himself
dishonest and cowardly, through and through.

"But I feel sure," Mrs. Hilary went on, "that when it's a question of
your sister, you would wish her life to be continued on the same plane,
and in the surroundings she had always been used to."

"I should think that best, certainly, for a girl of Louise's ideas,"
said Matt, trying to get his own to the surface.

"Ideas!" cried his mother. "She _has_ no ideas. She merely has impulses,
and her impulses are to do what people wish. But her education and
breeding have been different from those of such a young man, and she
would be very unhappy with him. They never could quite understand each
other, no matter how much they were in love. I know he is very talented,
and all that; and I shouldn't at all mind his being poor. I never minded
Cyril Wade's being poor, when I thought he had taken her fancy, because
he was one of ourselves; and this young man--Matt, you _can't_ pretend,
that with all his intellectual qualities, he's what one calls a
gentleman. With his origin and bringing up; his coarse experiences; all
his trials and struggles; even with his successes, he couldn't be; and
Louise could not be happy with him for that very reason. He might have
all the gifts, all the virtues, under the sun; I don't deny that he
has--"

"He has some very serious faults," Matt interrupted.

"We all have," said Mrs. Hilary, tolerantly. "But he might be a perfect
saint--a hero--a martyr, and if he wasn't what one calls a gentleman,
don't you see? We can't be frank about such things, here, because we
live in a republic; but--"

"We get there, just the same," said Matt, with unwonted slang.

"Yes," said his mother. "That is what I mean."

"And you're quite right, as to the facts, mother." He got up, and began
to walk about the long, low living-room of the farmhouse where they were
sitting. Louise had gone to direct her maid in packing for her flitting
to the seaside in the morning; Matt could see a light in the ell-chamber
where Maxwell was probably writing. "The self-made man can never be the
society equal of the society-made man. He may have more brains, more
money, more virtue, but he's a kind of inferior, and he betrays his
inferiority in every worldly exigency. And if he's successful, he's so
because he's been stronger, fiercer, harder than others in the battle of
life. That's one reason why I sa