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‘These are questions which are sometimes painful—but not necessarily so,’ said the young schoolmaster. ‘Take hold of my arm going down the avenue. Oh do! It is dark, and you might stumble, and the moon gives little light under the trees. And then, don’t you think I have a right to a little, just a little, kindness, more than everybody else? Well, then,’ he went on in a satisfied tone, as Joyce, moved by this argument, conceded the arm, though with some reluctance. ‘I will tell you all about it. It would be painful if it were not looked at from a high point of view. It is mortifying when there is no difference—when you are just as well instructed, perhaps better, and acquainted with all the rules of politeness, and even etiquette, and all the rest of it’—Joyce moved uneasily, impatiently, on his arm, and he had to hold her fast to retain it—‘to feel that there is a difference!’ he went on hastily; ‘and founded upon nothing reasonable, upon no solid ground. For to call them our betters is folly. Wherein are they our betters? not in acquaintance with everything that is best—with literature, with science, with what Tennyson calls the long results of time.’