The old-fashioned idea that the touching of pitch will defile still prevailed with him.

He was a gentleman;--and would have felt himself disgraced to enter the house of such a one as Augustus Melmotte.

Not all the duchesses in the peerage, or all the money in the city, could alter his notions or induce him to modify his conduct.

But he knew that it would be useless for him to explain this to Lady Carbury.

He trusted, however, that one of the family might be taught to appreciate the difference between honour and dishonour.