In the first place it would be so wrong, and then there is the question of your name, your position.
Forgive my frankness, but the fact is that everybody would say that you had sold yourself--such a marriage would be a scandal for both your family and mine." As she spoke she took hold of his hands, like a mother seeking to prevent her big son from committing some terrible blunder.

And he listened to her, with bowed head and averted eyes.

She now evinced no anger, no jealous rage; all such feelings seemed to have departed with the rapture of her passion.
"Just think of what people would say," she continued.

"I don't deceive myself, I am fully aware that there is an abyss between your circle of society and ours.

It is all very well for us to be rich, but money simply enlarges the gap.