This man was only a tailor, dressed in fulled cloth, and no doubt his past life would not bear inspection; and she was the Notary's wife, and had said to people in the village that she would find out the man's history from himself.
"That is one good reason why I should not go to confession," he replied casually, and turned to a table where he had been cutting a waistcoat--for the first time in his life.
"Do you think I'm going to stand your impertinence?
Do you know who I am ?" Charley calmly put up his monocle.

He looked at the foolish little woman with so cruel a flash of the eye that she shrank back.
"I should know you anywhere," he said.
"Come, Stephan," she said nervously to her boy, and pulled him towards the door.
On the instant Charley's feeling changed.

Was he then going to carry the old life into the new, and rebuke a silly garish woman whose faults were generic more than personal?
He hurried forward to the door and courteously opened it for her.
"Permit me, Madame," he said.
She saw that there was nothing ironical in this politeness.

She had a sudden apprehension of an unusual quality called "the genteel," for no storekeeper in Chaudiere ever opened or shut a shop-door for anybody.
She smiled a vacuous smile; she played "the lady" terribly, as, with a curious conception of dignity, she held her body stiff as a ramrod, and with a prim merci sailed into the street.
This gorgeous exit changed her opinion of the man she had been unable to catechise.

Undoubtedly he had snubbed her--that was the word she used in her mind--but his last act had enabled her, in the sight of several habitants and even of Madame Dugal, "to put on airs," as the charming Madame Dugal said afterwards.
Thinking it better to give the impression that she had had a successful interview, she shook her head mysteriously when asked about M'sieu', and murmured, "He is quite the gentleman!" which she thought a socially distinguished remark.
When she had gone, Charley turned to old Louis.
"I don't want to turn your customers away," he said quietly, "but there it is! I don't need to answer questions as a part of the business, do I ?" There was a sour grin on the face of old Trudel.