Here was the Wilkes pride in the dust at her feet. Here was the end of the kindly, courteous house which had always welcomed her, the house where in futile dreams she had aspired to be mistress.
She said, I was born a girl, but my father, a nobleman in Burgundy, had fallen upon hard times and in order for me to inherit, he decided to raise me as a boy.
He was an oil magnet and he'd grown up basically with this big chip on his shoulder because his father didn't think that he should inherit the company.