“It is not an impertinence,” she replied quite easily. “There is no tragedy hidden behind my ‘maiden meditation.’ The simple truth is that I have never had an offer from any one whom I could willingly or possibly promise to love, honor, and obey for my whole life, though I have refused some with regret; and if I have known any person to whom I could have so devoted myself, no approach on his part and no consciousness on mine have ever revealed the fact to me. My mind and life were always full. My mother taught me to love books and nature, and said nothing about marriage. There is nothing like having plenty to think of. Are you satisfied?” “Perfectly,” he replied, but seemed not altogether pleased. Perhaps he would have found a less self-sufficing woman more interesting and amiable. “Still, I beg your pardon for a question which, after all, no one should ask. One never knows what may have happened in a life.” “That is true,” she replied. “And it is true that the question might be to some an embarrassing one to answer. It does not hurt me, however.” “Papa does not allow us to ask questions,” Isabel said a little complainingly, having caught a few words of their talk. “You have no idea how sharply he will speak to us, or, at least, look at us, if he hears us asking the simplest question that can be at all personal. And yet people question us unmercifully. I think one might retort in self-defence.” “How I wish you could have a larger number of pupils than these two, Mr. Vane!” the Signora sighed. “I would like to send some of my lady friends to school to you. The questions that some ladies, who consider themselves well bred, will ask, are astonishing. Indeed, there is, I think, more vulgarity in fine society than among any other class of people in the world. Delicacy and refinement are flowers that need a little shade to keep their freshness. I have more than once been shocked to see, in a momentary revelation, how slight was the difference of character between a bold, unscrupulous virago of the streets, and some fine lady when an unpleasant excitement had disturbed the thin polish of manner with which she was coated. Madame de Montespan――not a model by any means, though――relates that, when she came to Paris to be trained for polite life, among the admonitions and prohibitions, one of the strongest was that she must not ask questions. Not long ago, on thinking over a conversation I had with a lady whom I had known just three weeks, I found that these questions had been propounded to me in the course of it: How old are you? Who visits you? What is your income? Have you any money laid up? Have you sold your last story? To whom have you sold it? How much do they pay you? Is it paid for? Of course the lady was fitting herself to speak with authority of my affairs.”