She was to him
the very type of everything aristocratic. It might be, as she had
told him, that she chose to work for her living, but he knew as
though by inspiration that her people and connections were of that
world to which he could never belong, save on sufferance. He meant
to belong to it, for her sake - to win her! He admitted the
presumption, but then it would be presumption of any man to lift
his eyes to her. He estimated his chances with common sense; he was
not a man disposed to undervalue himself. He knew the power of his
wealth and his advantage over the crowd of young men who were her
equals by birth. For he had met some of them, had inquired into
their lives, listened to their jargon, and had come in a faint sort
of way to understand them. It had been an encouragement to him.
After all it was only serious work, life lived out face to face with
the great realities of existence which could make a man. In a dim
way he realised that there were few in her own class likely to
satisfy Ernestine. He even dared to tell himself that those things
which rendered him chiefly unfit for her, the acquired vulgarities
of his rougher life, were things which he could put away; that a
time would come when he would take his place confidently in her
world, and that the end would be success.
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