When Sheila finds out that Eva Smith, a former employee of her father's, committed suicide after being sacked, her initial reaction is, according to the stage direction, "rather distressed." This suggests that her reaction is appropriate, albeit somewhat restrained

Sheila starts asking questions about Eva, like how old she was and whether she was pretty. When she finds out that her father sacked Eva for asking for a pay rise, Sheila says to him that she thinks it was "a mean thing to do." She also tells her father, reproachfully, that girls like Eva "aren't cheap labour—they're people." Here, then, Sheila seems to sympathize with Eva Smith.

Sheila can at this point afford to be a little self-righteous in her criticism of her father, given that she has not yet discovered her own role in the death of Eva Smith. The moral righteousness she demonstrates in her initial reaction, and the sympathy she expresses for Eva, seems somewhat hypocritical and disingenuous, however, when we subsequently find out about how she herself treated Eva Smith.