"You have no right to abuse him.

He is your people's guest and a very distinguished man, and you are only a foolish boy." He paled below his sunburn.

Now he believed the truth of the horrid suspicion which had been fastening on his mind.

"But--but," he stammered, "the chap isn't a gentleman, you know." The words quickened her vexation.

A gentleman! The cant word, the fetish of this ring of idle aristocrats--she knew the hollowness of the whole farce.