He turned to his companions.

"Congratulate me!" Then he sat down.
The champagne thawed the tongues of the company, and as they spoke Sylvia's heart sank more and more.

For in word and thought and manner her father's guests were familiar to her.

She refused to acknowledge it, but the knowledge was forced upon her.

She had thought to step out of a world which she hated, against which her delicacy and her purity revolted, and lo! she had stepped out merely to take a stride and step down into it again at another place.
The obsequious attentiveness of Captain Barstow, the vanity of Mr.
Parminter and his affected voice, suggesting that he came out of the great world to this little supper party, really without any sense of condescension at all, and the behavior of Walter Hine, who, to give himself courage, gulped down his champagne--it was all horribly familiar.
Her one consolation was her father.