But it seemed as if there were other objections. For Lady Caroline received the proposition very coldly. It really took her aback.. It was one thing to have little Miss Colwyn to lunch once a week, and quite another to send Margaret to that shabby little house in Gywnne Street. "Who knows whether the drains are all right, and whether she may not get typhoid fever?" said Lady Caroline to herself, with a shudder. "There are children in the house—they may develop measles or chicken-pox at any moment—you never know when children of that class are free from infection. And I heard an odd report about Mrs. Colwyn's habits the other day. Oh, I think it is too great a risk."
But when she said as much after Janetta's departure, she found Margaret for once recalcitrant. Margaret had her own views of propriety, and these were quite as firmly grounded as those of Lady Caroline. She had treated Janetta, she considered, with the greatest magnanimity, and she meant to be magnanimous to the end. She had made the gardener cut Miss Colwyn a basket of his best flowers and his choicest forced fruit; she had herself directed the housekeeper to see that some game was placed under the coachman's box when Miss Colwyn was driven home; and she had sent a box of French sweets to Tiny, although she had never seen that young lady in her life, and had a vague objection to all Janetta's relations. She felt, therefore, perfectly sure that she had done her duty, and she was not to be turned aside from the path of right.
"I don't think that I shall run into any danger, mamma," she said, quietly. "The children are to be kept out of the way, and I shall see nobody but Janetta. She said so, very particularly. I daresay she thought of these things."
"I don't see why she should not come here."
"No, nor I. But she says that she has so much to do."
"Then it could not be true that she had no pupils, as she told Sir Philip," said Lady Caroline, looking at her daughter.
Margaret was silent for a little time. Then she said, very deliberately—
"I am almost afraid, mamma, that Janetta is not quite straightforward."
"That was always my own idea," said Lady Caroline, rather eagerly. "I never quite trusted her, darling."
"We always used to think her so truthful and courageous," said Margaret, with regret. "But I am afraid——You know, mamma, I asked her what Sir Philip said to her, and she did not say a single word about having talked to him of our leaving Miss Polehampton's. She said he had spoken of her father, and of getting pupils for her, and so on."