That sentence is the whole architecture of a family like the Hollises, and I have thought about it a great deal since, because it explains something people find baffling from the outside — how a man like Arthur can operate for decades, in plain sight, surrounded by people who are not stupid.

The trick is that the family does not decide to protect the predator.

That would require admitting there is a predator, and no one ever admits that.

Instead, the family quietly relocates the problem.

The problem is not that Arthur corners women; the problem is that this particular woman is oversensitive.

The problem is not the advances; it is the dress that “caused a misunderstanding.” The problem is not the behavior; it is the noticing of the behavior, the naming of it, the failure to smooth it over.

And so, one small reasonable adjustment at a time, the entire moral weight of the situation is lifted off the man doing harm and set down onto the person harmed, until she is carrying all of it, and he is carrying none, and everyone can go on believing the family is exactly as clean as the Christmas photo says.