How does reputation shape the lives of Colin's characters?

Eiffel tells Émile, of Paris, "reputation in this city is everything, you know that." How does reputation shape the lives of Colin's characters?

Reputation is the platform from which the characters see the world and their place in that world. Alice and Jamie, although not children, cannot be trusted to navigate the complex world of “society” without a chaperone. Caitlin, who is really an independent spirit, must sublimate her emotions in the name of propriety because as a companion to the Arrolls, she cannot be an equal to Emile.Emile, who is drawn almost immediately to Caitlin, also feels the tug of his place in society when he acknowledges the fact that he and Caitlin are of different social levels. He cannot take her home to meet his mother. Reputation is the reason they cannot be together openly. Alice’s carelessly wild behavior is almost her undoing and only a “fortunate” miscarriage saves her reputation so that she can take her place in society as a respectable wife of a wealthy man later in the novel. Ones reputation must be carefully protected. This is as true today as it was in the Paris of 1886.

At this time, especially those who were in the upper classes had to follow the rules of society or often be cruelly ejected and ignored.

One only has to look to social media to see how reputations are everything. There is a rush to judgment for good or bad, based on what people think they see. Reputations can be destroyed in 120 characters or made into heroes by a moment caught on video. reputations are as life changing now as ever. In Emile's time, there was a gossip line that formed opinions, for good or bad, just as Facebook and Twitter do now. Nothing has changed in the regard, only the method is different.