She was pale, and profoundly agitated.
So this was his meaning ?--made plain enough at last, though with the most graceful phrasing.

Childish vanity and ignorance had forbidden her to dream of such an issue.

She had not for a moment grasped the significance to a man of the world of the ruin and disgrace fallen upon her family.

In theory she might call herself an exile from the polite world; none the less did she imagine herself still illumined by the social halo, guarded by the divinity which doth hedge a member of the upper-middle class.

Was she not a lady?
And who had ever dared to offer a lady an insult such as this?
Shop-girls, minor actresses, the inferior sort of governess, must naturally be on their guard; their insecurity was traditional; novel and drama represented their moral vicissitudes.