More than once before the day closed, she found herself contrasting
the two men. The one had not had a shred of true worth about him.
Stanton, to teaze her and to justify his interference, had told her
that Mr. Burleigh had been compelled to take charge of her companion
in order to prevent him from disgracing himself and the house.
Although too proud to acknowledge it, she still saw plainly that
it was her cousin's interference, and indirectly the intervention
of the artist that had kept her from being involved in that disgrace.

Even her perverted mind recognized that one was a gentleman, and
the other--well, "a fashionable young man," as she would phrase
it. The one, as a friend, would shield her from every detracting
breath; the other, if given a chance, would inevitably tumble into
some slough of infamy himself, and drag her after him with reckless
selfishness.

Still, with something like self-loathing, she saw that Sibley was
her natural ally and companion, and that she had far more in common
with him than with the artist. She could easily maintain with him
the inane chatter of their frivolous life, but she could not talk
with the artist, nor he with her, without an effort that was as
humiliating as it was apparent.

What was more, she saw that all others classed her with Sibley,
and that the people in the house who were akin to the artist in
character and high breeding, stood courteously but coolly aloof
from both herself and her mother. She also felt that she could
not lay all the blame of this upon her poor father. Indeed, since
the previous miserable Sunday on which Van Berg had tried to win
Mr. Mayhew from his evil habit for one day at least, and she had