Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006

Hello:

I would like to have your interpretation(s) for "so much" in the 2nd para:

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[The New York "society" is forced to confront an ugly bankruptcy.]

"I said to her: "Honour's always been honour, and honesty honesty, in
Manson Mingott's house, and will be till I'm carried out of it feet
first,'" the old woman had stammered into her daughter's ear, in the
thick voice of the partly paralysed. "And when she said: `But my name,
Auntie--my name's Regina Dallas,' I said: `It was Beaufort when he
covered you with jewels, and it's got to stay Beaufort now that he's
covered you with shame.'"

So much, with tears and gasps of horror, Mrs. Welland imparted,
blanched and demolished by the unwonted obligation of having at last
to fix her eyes on the unpleasant and the discreditable.

The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, p. 303
http://www.fiction.us/wharton/age/c27.html
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Is it the meaning 2 here?
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so much

Function: pronoun

1 : something (as an amount or price) unspecified or undetermined
<charge so much a mile>

2 : that is all that can be or is to be said or done now <so much for
the history of the case>

http://unabridged.merriam-webster.com
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Or, something similar, along the lines is "That is all that Mrs. Welland
said ...?"

Thank you.
Marius Hancu