“She tells me,” I answered, “that they are poor at home; she always speaks quite candidly on such points; you never find her lying, as these foreigners will often lie. Her parents have a large family: they occupy such a station and possess such connections as, in their opinion, demand display; stringent necessity of circumstances and inherent thoughtlessness of disposition combined, have engendered reckless unscrupulousness as to how they obtain the means of sustaining a good appearance. This is the state of things, and the only state of things, she has seen from childhood upwards.”

“I believe it⁠—and I thought to mould her to something better; but, Lucy, to speak the plain truth, I have felt a new thing tonight, in looking at her and de Hamal. I felt it before noticing the impertinence directed at my mother. I saw a look interchanged between them immediately after their entrance, which threw a most unwelcome light on my mind.”

“How do you mean? You have been long aware of the flirtation they keep up?”