The same pressures and caresses, unaccompanied by speech, that were efficacious with the girls of the working-class, were equally efficacious with the girls above the working- class.

They were all of the same flesh, after all, sisters under their skins; and he might have known as much himself had he remembered his Spencer.

As he held Ruth in his arms and soothed her, he took great consolation in the thought that the Colonel's lady and Judy O'Grady were pretty much alike under their skins.

It brought Ruth closer to him, made her possible.

Her dear flesh was as anybody's flesh, as his flesh.