He met the glance, and the expression of his own face changed from its cynical smile to a thoughtful sadness.
"Honest perhaps; and yet I almost doubt if anything under five thousand a year would have kept me honest.

Decidedly not happy; the men who can be happy on five hundred a year are made of a duller stuff than the clay which serves for a Hawkehurst." "You talk about not being happy with five hundred a year!" Diana exclaimed impatiently.

"Surely any decent existence would be happiness to you compared to the miserable life you lead,--the shameful, degraded life which shuts you out of the society of respectable people and reduces you to the level of a thief.

If you had any pride, Valentine, you would feel it as bitterly as I do." "But I haven't any pride.

As for my life,--well, I suppose it is shameful and degraded, and I know that it's often miserable; but it suits me better than jog-trot respectability, I can dine one day on truffled turkey and champagne, another day upon bread and cheese and small beer; but I couldn't eat beef and mutton always.