Miss Belton was one of those ambiguous ladies who sometimes drift out from the metropolitan vortex and circle restfully in backwaters for varying periods, appearing and disappearing irrelevantly.
They dress beautifully; they are known to "paint" and thought to dye their hair.

They establish no relations, being much too preoccupied.
making exceptions only, as a rule, in favour of one or two young men, to whom they extend amenities based--it is the common talk--upon late hours and whiskey-and-soda.

They seem superior to the little prevailing conventions; they excite an unlawful interest; though nobody knows them black nobody imagines them white; and when they appear upon Main Street in search of shoelaces or elastic heads are turned and nods, possibly nudges, exchanged.

Miss Belton had come from New York to the Barker House, Elgin, and young Ormiston's intimacy with her was one of the things that counted against him in the general view.

It was to so count more seriously in the particular instance.