"But I'll manage it
somehow. I'll win out in spite of any, of every handicap."
She eyed him furtively. Yes, if she wished to make a marriage of
ambition she could not do better. All Washington was laughing at
him; but she felt she had penetrated beneath the surface that
excited their mirth--had seen qualities that would carry him
wherever he wished to go--wherever she, with her grandmother's own
will, wished him to go.
"And," pursued he, "I'm far too rough and coarse for you--you, the
quintessence of aristocracy."
She flushed with double delight--delight at this flattery and the
deeper delight a woman feels when a man shows her the weakness in
himself by which she can reach and rule him.
"I'm always afraid of offending your delicacy," he went fatuously
on. "You're the only person I ever felt that way about. Absolutely
the only one. But you've got to expect that sort of thing in a man
who prevails in such a world as this. When men get too high-toned
and aristocratic, too fussy about manners and dress, along come
real men to ride them down and under. But I'll try to be
everything you wish--to you. Not to the others. That would defeat
our object; for I'm going to take my wife high--very high.
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