Mrs.Shufflebotham keeps a little shop, and sells cakes and sweetmeats.

Does it distress you ?" Distress was not the applicable word, for Lashmar had no deep interest in Constance or her belongings.

But the revelation surprised and rather disgusted him.

He wondered why Constance made it thus needlessly, and, as it was, defiantly.
"I should be very stupid and conventional," he answered, with his indulgent smile, "if such things affected me one way or another." "I don't mind telling you that, when I first knew about it, I wished Mrs.Shufflebotham and her shop at the bottom of the sea." Constance laughed.

"But I soon got over that.