But similar claims over here are laughable at a glance.

The reason I hesitate to marry your daughter is not to her credit, or to her parents' credit--or to yours." Madam Bowker was beside herself with rage at these candid insults, flung at her with all Craig's young energy and in his most effective manner; for his crudeness disappeared when he spoke thus, as the blackness and roughness of the coal vanish in the furnace heat, transforming it into beauty and grace of flames.
"Do I make myself clear ?" demanded Craig, his eyes flashing superbly upon her.
"You certainly do," snapped the old lady, her dignity tottering and a very vulgar kind of human wrath showing uglily in her blazing eyes and twitching nose and mouth and fingers.
"Then let us have no more of this caste nonsense," said the young man.
"Forbid your granddaughter to marry or to see me.

Send or take her away.
She will thank you a year from now.

My thanks will begin from the moment of release." "Yes, you have made yourself extremely clear," said Madam Bowker in a suffocating voice.

To be thus defied, insulted, outraged, in her own magnificent salon, in her own magnificent presence! "You may be sure you will have no further opportunity to exploit your upstart insolence in my family.