" Learning that he was a professional swindler should have made her shame a hundred times worse. Instead, it took the sting out of it. The whole affair was disgusting, and she was unwise to have trusted him, but she had been one of many victims. She wouldn't stand out in his mind as more foolish than other women.

What a strange, vain thing the mind was. "

― Rose Lerner , True Pretenses (Lively St. Lemeston, #2)