It was a man's affair.

He resolutely tried to look on the whole thing as unworthy of attention, to feel that nothing would occur.

He failed dismally, for three reasons.

First, his inherent love of regularity, of having everything in proper order; secondly, his ingrained mistrust of and aversion from Bianca; thirdly, his unavowed conviction, for all his wish to be sympathetic to them, that the lower classes always wanted something out of you.

It was a question of how much they would want, and whether it were wise to give them anything.