Mr.Holland put in an appearance in one of Mrs.Linton's big drawing rooms, and so did Phyllis Ayrton.
Everyone admitted that only a woman of the social capacity--some people called it genius--of Mrs.Linton could accomplish such a feat as the bringing into the same room two persons who had given unmistakable evidence of possessing a conscience apiece--the woman who had sacrificed the man for conscience' sake, and the man who had sacrificed the woman under the same influence.

It was a social triumph, beyond doubt.
People talked in whispers of conscience, the advantages and the disadvantages of its possession, and the consensus of opinion was of its being quite appropriate in regard to a clergyman, and that it was not altogether out of place on the part of a spinster, provided that she had counteracting virtues; but, on the whole, it was perhaps wiser to leave the conscience with the Nonconformists.
Phyllis did not see George Holland until she had got halfway up the first of Mrs.Linton's rooms.

She did not hear her friend Ella say to someone, in a low voice of apprehension: "For Heaven's sake, keep them apart! They are just the sort of people to greet each other quite cordially; and if they do, no one here will believe that their engagement is off.

People here don't understand how a delicate conscience works." That was what Ella murmured to a man who had been invited in order that he might make himself generally useful.

She gave him his instructions too late, however.