Katherine, in her wounded pride and in her youth, did not allow that she thought so, I need not say. Her serious little head was tossed in indignation as scornfully as Stella’s would have been. She recalled to herself what dull people they were (which was quite true), and how commonplace their talk, and asked heaven and earth why she should care. Lottie Seton, for instance, with her retinue of silly young men: was she a loss to anyone? It was different with Lady Jane, who was a person of sense, and Katherine felt herself obliged to allow, different someway--she could not tell how--from the village ladies. Yet Lady Jane, though she disapproved highly of Mrs. Seton, for instance, never would have shut her out, as she very calmly and without the least hesitation shut out Katherine, of whom in her heart she did approve. It seemed to the girl merely injustice, the tyranny of a preposterous convention, the innate snobbishness (what other word is there?) of people in what is called society. And though she said little, she felt herself dropped out of that outer ledge of it, upon which Lady Jane’s patronage had posed her and her sister, with an angry pang. Stella belonged to it now, because she had married a pauper, a mercenary, fortune-hunting, and disreputable man; but she, who had done no harm, who was exactly the same Katherine as ever, was dropped. There were other consequences of this which were more harmful still. People who were connected in business with Mr. Tredgold, who had always appeared occasionally in the house, but against whom Stella had set her little impertinent face, now appeared in greater numbers, and with greater assurance than ever; and Mr. Tredgold, no longer held under subjection by Stella, liked to have them. With the hold she had on the great people, Stella had been able to keep these others at a distance, for Stella had that supreme distinction which belongs to aristocracy of being perfectly indifferent whether she hurt other people’s feelings or not; but Katherine possessed neither the one advantage nor the other--neither the hold upon society nor the calm and indifference. And the consequence naturally was that she was pushed to the wall. The city people came more and more; and she had to be kind to them, to receive them as if she liked it. When I say she had to do it, I do not mean that Katherine was forced by her father, but that she was forced by herself. There is an Eastern proverb that says “A man can act only according to his nature.” It was no more possible for Katherine to be uncivil, to make anyone feel that he or she was unwelcome, to “hurt their feelings,” as she would have said, than to read Hebrew or Chinese.