Excerpt from The Master of the Ceremonies, Vol. 2 of 3: A Novel Claire shrank back for a moment, and her natural womanly timidity urged her to turn and hurry home by the way she had come. But that would be showing Major Rockley that she was afraid of him, and this she wished to keep a secret in her own breast. Bowing slightly, then, she declined the offer of his hand, stepped over the stile, and went on. With anyone else Rockley would have felt bound to retire, but he only laughed. Claire was the daughter of the poor minister of fashion, who lived by the fees and offerings he received from new-comers; and he did not feel himself called upon to treat her as a lady. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.