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the word nob ,"
Bathsheba said between her teeth. She made herself count silently to
twenty, because she still wanted to run after the phaeton, tear the
driver from his perch, and knock his head against the carriage wheel.
    "It only means he's got rank or money," Olivia
said. "It isn't a bad word."
    "It is slang," Bathsheba
said. "A lady would refer to him as a gentleman .
The term serves for men belonging to the gentry and the aristocracy
as well as the peerage."
    "I know," Olivia said: "Papa said a
gentleman was a fellow who didn't work for his living."
    Jack Wingate had never worked for a living and simply
couldn't do it, even when it was a choice between working and
starvation. For all of his life before he met Bathsheba, someone else
had paid the bills, shouldered the responsibilities, and made a path
through the difficulties. For the rest of his short life, she was the
someone else.
    Still, in every other way, he had
been everything she could want in a husband, and he'd proved to be
the best of fathers. Olivia had adored him and, more important, listened to him.
    "Your father would make one of
his wry faces and say, 'Really, now, Olivia,' if you spoke of nobs to him," Bathsheba said. "One does not use the word in
polite conversation."
    Wishing Jack had taught her the trick of getting through
to their daughter, Bathsheba went on to explain how certain words
were interpreted. This word would prejudice people against one, by
indicating lower-class origins. She explained—for the
thousandth time, it seemed—that such judgments were an
unfortunate fact of life, with practical and often painful
consequences.
    She concluded with, "Kindly discard it from your
vocabulary."
    "But all those gentlemen can do
as they please, and no one scolds them ,"
Olivia said. "Even the women—the ladies .
They drink to excess and gamble away their husbands' money and go to
bed with men who aren't their husbands and—"
    "Olivia, what have I told you about reading the
scandal sheets?"
    "I haven't read one in weeks,
ever since you told me to stop," the girl said virtuously. "It
was Riggles the pawnbroker who told me about Lady Dorving. She pawned
her diamonds again to cover her gaming debts. And everyone knows that
Lord John French is the father of Lady Craith's last two children."
    Bathsheba hardly knew where to begin responding to this
declaration. Riggles was an undesirable acquaintance, not to mention
indiscreet. Regrettably, Olivia had been on easy terms with such
persons practically since birth. Jack always dealt with them, because
he'd had the most practice with pawnbrokers and moneylenders. And he
always took
    Olivia, because even the stoniest heart could not resist
her enormous, innocent blue eyes.
    When he fell ill, and Bathsheba had so many other cares,
the then nine-year-old Olivia took over financial negotiations,
carrying the remaining bits of jewelry and plate, household
bric-a-brac, and clothing to and fro. She was even better at it than
Jack had been. She had his charm and her mama's obstinacy combined,
unfortunately, with the Dreadful DeLucey talent for bamboozlement.
    Bathsheba and Jack had left the Continent and moved to
Ireland to get Olivia away from the unwholesome influence of
Bathsheba's family.
    The trouble was, Olivia was drawn to shifty characters,
rogues and vagabonds, spongers and swindlers—persons like her
maternal relatives, in other words. Apart from her teacher and
classmates, the pawnbrokers were the most respectable of her London
acquaintances.
    Undoing the education her daughter
received on the streets was becoming a full-time occupation for
Bathsheba. They must move to a better neighborhood very soon.
    All they needed was a few shillings' increase in monthly
income.
    The question was where to find the money.
    Bathsheba must either obtain more commissions or acquire
more drawing students.
    Neither students nor commissions were easy for a woman
artist to come by. Needlework was, but it would earn a