which to her and her class is a kind of Palace of the Cæsars. You
belong to a family famous all along the coast; you are well known to
be the probable heir of one of the largest landowners in England; you
may be something more important still; while she, poor girl, what is
she that you should rush up to her before all the churchgoers of the
parish and address her as Winifred? The daughter of a penniless,
drunken reprobate. Every attention you pay her is but a slur upon her
good name.'

'There is not a lady in the county worthy to unlace her shoes,' I
cried, unguardedly. Then I could have bitten off my tongue for saying
so.

'That may be,' said my mother, with the quiet irony peculiar to her;
'but so monstrous are the customs of England, Henry, so barbaric is
this society you despise, that she, whose shoes no lady in the county
is worthy to unlace, is in an anomalous position. Should she once
again be seen talking familiarly with you, her character will have
fled, and fled for ever. It is for you to choose whether you are set
upon ruining her reputation.'

I felt that what she said was true. I felt also that Winifred herself
had recognised the net of conventions that kept us apart in spite of
that close and tender intimacy which had been the one great fact of
our lives. In a certain sense I was far more of a child of Nature
than Winifred herself, inasmuch as, owing to my remarkable childish
experience of isolation, I had imbibed a scepticism about the
sanctity of conventions such as is foreign to the nature of woman, be
she ever so unsophisticated, as Winifred's shyness towards me had
testified.