They had missed the man entirely.

They were about to learn, in the most thorough way possible, who they had been mocking.

There is an irony in it so complete that Emily could never quite get over it: that the family who prided themselves on their discernment, on knowing quality when they saw it, on being able to sort the important people from the unimportant at a glance, had proven, that evening, to be the blindest people in the room.

They believed they could read a person’s worth off their surface — off a blazer, a watch, a stated income, a company’s reputation — and they were so confident in this ability that they never thought to look past the surface to the person underneath.