Am I to eat the bread of humiliation in vain?
Faugh! Am I to make love to a creature like Matty Bell in the vain hope of rousing the envy or the jealousy of that proud girl?
I don't believe she has got either envy or jealousy.

She seemed quite pleased when I spoke to that wretched little personage, although she had the grace to look a trifle ashamed for her sex when Miss Matty so openly made love to me.

Well, this is a slow place, and yet, when I think of that haughty--no, though, she's not haughty--that imperturbable Beatrice Meadowsweet, it becomes positively interesting.
"Why has the girl these airs?
And her father kept a shop, too! I found that fact out from Matty Bell to-day.

What a spiteful, teasing little gnat that same Matty is, trying to sting her best friend.

What a little mock ridiculous air she put on when she tried to explain to me the social status of a coal merchant (I presume Bell is a coal merchant) _versus_ a draper." As Bertram strolled along, avoiding the High Street, and choosing the coast line for his walk, he lazily smoked a pipe, and thought, in that idle indifferent way with which men of his stamp always do exercise their mental faculties, about his future.