In the innocence of her pure mind, the purport of his words was utterly lost.

Her very fear of the man was not a reasoning fear, but the instinctive shrinking of a nature that had never felt the unclean touch of the world in which James Rutlidge habitually moved.

It was this very unreasoning element in her emotions that made her always so embarrassed in the man's presence.

It was because she did not understand her fear of him, that the girl, usually so capable of taking her own part, was, in his presence, so helpless.
James Rutlidge, by the intellectual, moral, and physical atmosphere in which he lived, was made wholly incapable of understanding the nature of Sibyl Andres.

Secure in the convictions of his own debased mind, as to her relation to the artist; and misconstruing her very manner in his presence; he was not long in putting his proposal into words that she could not fail to understand.
When she _did_ grasp his meaning, her fears and her trembling nervousness gave place to courageous indignation and righteous anger that found expression in scathing words of denunciation.
The man, still, could not understand the truth of the situation.