Persons who live exclusively in any one narrow sphere are apt to have a strange simplicity, or ignorance, as one may choose to call it, as to large sections of their fellow-creatures outside that sphere. And in no class is that kind of _naïveté_ more commonly found than in the class to which Mrs. Dormer-Smith belonged, where it is often intensified by the conviction that they possess what is called "knowledge of the world" in a supreme degree. It was far too late in the day to bring much enlightenment to Mrs. Dormer-Smith. Owen's words merely struck her mind with a shock of wonder and dismay, and then glanced off again. The impression of having received a shock, however, did remain with her, and made her as resentful as was possible to her placid nature. In speaking of Mr. Rivers afterwards to her husband, she said-- "I believe him, Frederick, to be a Nihilist." But for the present her mind was concentrated on the aim of breaking off what Owen chose to call his engagement to her niece, and she was not to be turned aside from it. She addressed herself to argue the case with Owen. In argument she possessed the immense advantage--if it be an advantage to reduce one's adversary to silence--of supposing that the statement of any one truth on her part was a sufficient answer to any other truth which might be advanced against her. As, for instance, when Owen insisted on Captain Cheffington's having forfeited all moral claim to May's duty and affection, she replied that it was a dreadful thing to set a child against a parent; and when Owen denied the right of May's relatives to prevent her from making a marriage of affection, she retorted that Mr. Rivers came of undeniably gentle blood himself, and ought to understand her (Mrs. Dormer-Smith's) strong family feeling. But when even this powerful kind of logic failed to make any impression on Owen's obduracy, she changed her attack, and inquired what he was prepared to offer to her niece, in exchange for the magnificent prospect of being Mrs. Joshua Bragg, with settlements and pin-money such as every duke's daughter would desire, and very few dukes' daughters achieved. "But, my dear madam," said Owen, "why speak of that alternative when May has assured you, in my presence, that nothing would induce her to marry Mr. Bragg?" "Oh, Mr. Rivers, I am surprised you know so little of the world! May is a mere child: peculiarly childish for her age. Besides, even supposing she definitively rejected Mr. Bragg, there will be other good matches open to her _now_. The death of my poor cousin Lucius has made a vast difference in all that, as you must be well aware." "To me, Mrs. Dormer-Smith, it has made no difference. May is herself. That is why I love her. She is not in the least transfigured, in my imagination, by being the daughter of a man who may, or may not, be Lord Castlecombe at some future day!"