Stransom had just time to see she was pretty before he found himself gaping at a fact more portentous.

"My dear fellow, let me make you acquainted with my wife." Creston had blushed and stammered over it, but in half a minute, at the rate we live in polite society, it had practically become, for our friend, the mere memory of a shock.

They stood there and laughed and talked; Stransom had instantly whisked the shock out of the way, to keep it for private consumption.

He felt himself grimace, he heard himself exaggerate the proper, but was conscious of turning not a little faint.
That new woman, that hired performer, Mrs.Creston?
Mrs.Creston had been more living for him than any woman but one.

This lady had a face that shone as publicly as the jeweller's window, and in the happy candour with which she wore her monstrous character was an effect of gross immodesty.