Possibly because he had never moved amongst that class of women with whom intimacy is obtained only through the sanction of a binding sacrament.

His contempt of the society to which his birth gave him right of entrance, had always kept him apart from them.

But he scarcely saw the matter in that breadth of light.

Intimacy with the women he had known had always been possible--possible in its various degrees, some more difficult to arrive at than others, but always possible.

And, until that moment, when Sally had told him that she knew he was a gentleman, he had placed her no differently to the rest.