The effect of this _eclaircissement_ upon Mr. Trafford was not what it
should have been. Properly he ought to have realized at once that
Marjorie was for ever beyond his aspirations, and if he found it too
difficult to regard her with equanimity, then he ought to have shunned
her presence. But instead, after his first shock of incredulous
astonishment, his spirit rose in a rebellion against arranged facts that
was as un-English as it was ungentlemanly. He went back to Solomonson
with a mood of thoughtful depression giving place to a growing passion
of indignation. He presented it to himself in a generalized and
altruistic form. "What the deuce is the good of all this talk of
Eugenics," he asked himself aloud, "if they are going to hand over that
shining girl to that beastly little area sneak?"