She spoke, somehow, a different language.
There was something strange in her words.

He had a feeling that another man, in his place, would accommodate himself to her tone; would ask her questions and joke with her, reply to those pleasantries of her own which sometimes seemed startling as addressed to an uncle.

But Mr.
Wentworth could not do these things.

He could not even bring himself to attempt to measure her position in the world.

She was the wife of a foreign nobleman who desired to repudiate her.