Book The Second: Riches Chapter 6 Something Right Somewhere

Howbeit, these two subjects were very often on his lips; and he managed
them so well that he might have praised himself by the month together,
and not have made himself out half so important a man as he did by his
light disparagement of his claims on anybody's consideration.

Out of this same airy talk of his, it always soon came to be understood,
wherever he and his wife went, that he had married against the wishes
of his exalted relations, and had had much ado to prevail on them to
countenance her. He never made the representation, on the contrary
seemed to laugh the idea to scorn; but it did happen that, with all his
pains to depreciate himself, he was always in the superior position.
From the days of their honeymoon, Minnie Gowan felt sensible of being
usually regarded as the wife of a man who had made a descent in marrying
her, but whose chivalrous love for her had cancelled that inequality.

To Venice they had been accompanied by Monsieur Blandois of Paris, and
at Venice Monsieur Blandois of Paris was very much in the society of
Gowan.

When they had first met this gallant gentleman at Geneva,
Gowan had been undecided whether to kick him or encourage him; and had
remained for about four-and-twenty hours, so troubled to settle
the point to his satisfaction, that he had thought of tossing up a
five-franc piece on the terms, 'Tails, kick; heads, encourage,' and
abiding by the voice of the oracle. It chanced, however, that his wife
expressed a dislike to the engaging Blandois, and that the balance
of feeling in the hotel was against him. Upon it, Gowan resolved to
encourage him.

Why this perversity, if it were not in a generous fit?--which it was
not. Why should Gowan, very much the superior of Blandois of Paris, and
very well able to pull that prepossessing gentleman to pieces and find
out the stuff he was made of, take up with such a man? In the first
place, he opposed the first separate wish he observed in his wife,
because her father had paid his debts and it was desirable to take an
early opportunity of asserting his independence. In the second place,
he opposed the prevalent feeling, because with many capacities of
being otherwise, he was an ill-conditioned man. He found a pleasure in
declaring that a courtier with the refined manners of Blandois ought
to rise to the greatest distinction in any polished country. He found a
pleasure in setting up Blandois as the type of elegance, and making
him a satire upon others who piqued themselves on personal graces.