CHAPTER XII.
Opinion was strongly against Mr.Van Torp.

A millionaire is almost as good a mark at which to throw mud as a woman of the world whose reputation has never before been attacked, and when the two can be pilloried together it is hardly to be expected that ordinary people should abstain from pelting them and calling them bad names.
Lady Maud, indeed, was protected to some extent by her father and brothers, and by many loyal friends.

It is happily still doubtful how far one may go in printing lies about an honest woman without getting into trouble with the law, and when the lady's father is not only a peer, but has previously been a barrister of reputation and a popular and hard-working member of the House of Commons during a long time, it is generally safer to use guarded language; the advisability of moderation also increases directly as the number and size of the lady's brothers, and inversely as their patience.

Therefore, on the whole, Lady Maud was much better treated by the society columns than Margaret at first expected.
On the other hand, they vented their spleen and sharpened their English on the American financier, who had no relations and scarcely any friends to stand by him, and was, moreover, in a foreign country, which always seems to be regarded as an aggravating circumstance when a man gets into any sort of trouble.

Isidore Bamberger and Mr.Feist had roused and let loose upon him a whole pack of hungry reporters and paragraph writers on both sides of the Atlantic.
The papers did not at first print his name except in connection with the divorce of Lady Maud.