I should be glad to give him my opinion of his conduct--a person admitted to this house as your brother's hanger-on--tolerated only on your brother's account; such a person, nameless, penniless, friendless (except for Maulevrier's too facile patronage), to dare to lift his eyes to my granddaughter! It is ineffable insolence!' Lesbia crouched by her grandmother's chair, her face hidden from Lady Maulevrier's falcon eye.

Every word uttered by her ladyship stung like the knotted cords of a knout.

She knew not whether to be most ashamed of her lover or of herself--of her lover for his obscure position, his hopeless poverty; of herself for her folly in loving such a man.

And she did love him, and would fain have pleaded his cause, had she not been cowed by the authority that had ruled her all her life.
'Lesbia, if I thought you had been silly enough, degraded enough, to give this young man encouragement, to have justified his audacity of to-day by any act or word of yours, I should despise, I should detest you,' said Lady Maulevrier, sternly.

'What could be more contemptible, more hateful in a girl reared as you have been than to give encouragement to the first comer--to listen greedily to the first adventurer who had the insolence to make love to you, to be eager to throw yourself into the arms of the first man who asked you.