You have to become famous before you can secure the attention which would give fame. - George Gissing

Yet in Peak's case all appearances are against him — just because he is of low birth, has no means, and wants desperately to get into society. The fellow is a scoundrel; I am convinced of it. Yet his designs may be innocent.

His grey eyes searched her countenance with that horrible intensity of fanaticism which is so like the look of cruelty, of greed, of any passion originating in the baser self.

Oftener than not, she still thought of Peak as he appeared some eleven years ago — an evident plebeian, without manners, without a redeeming grace.