"If Lady Henry could ever have felt that she _humbled_ me, that I acknowledged myself at her mercy! But she never could. She knows that I feel myself as well born as she, that I am _not_ ashamed of my parents, that my principles give me a free mind about such things." "Your principles?" murmured Sir Wilfrid. "You were right," she turned upon him with a perfectly quiet but most concentrated passion. "I have _had_ to think things out. I know, of course, that the world goes with Lady Henry. Therefore I must be nameless and kinless and hold my tongue. If the world knew, it would expect me to hang my head. I _don't!_ I am as proud of my mother as of my father. I adore both their memories. Conventionalities of that kind mean nothing to me." "My dear lady--" "Oh, I don't expect you or any one else to feel with me," said the voice which for all its low pitch was beginning to make him feel as though he were in the centre of a hail-storm. "You are a man of the world, you knew my parents, and yet I understand perfectly that for you, too, I am disgraced. So be it! So be it! I don't quarrel with what any one may choose to think, but--" She recaptured herself with difficulty, and there was silence. They were walking through the purple February dusk towards the Marble Arch. It was too dark to see her face under its delicate veil, and Sir Wilfrid did not wish to see it. But before he had collected his thoughts sufficiently his companion was speaking again, in a wholly different manner. "I don't know what made me talk in this way. It was the contact with some one, I suppose, who had seen us at Gherardtsloo." She raised her veil, and he thought that she dashed away some tears. "That never happened to me before in London. Well, now, to return. If there is a breach--" "Why should there be a breach?" said Sir Wilfrid. "My dear Miss Le Breton, listen to me for a few minutes. I see perfectly that you have a great deal to complain of, but I also see that Lady Henry has something of a case." And with a courteous authority and tact worthy of his trade, the old diplomat began to discuss the situation.