"Lady Caroline will be too wise."
"Why should people not call upon the Brands? I hear the same story everywhere—'Oh, no, we do not intend to call.' Is there really anything wrong about them?"
Janetta felt some embarrassment. Had not she put nearly the same question to her own father the night before? But she could not tell Margaret Adair what her father had said to her.
"If there were—and I do not know that there is—you could hardly expect me to talk about it, Margaret," she said, with some dignity.
Margaret's good breeding came to her aid at once. "I beg your pardon, dear Janetta. I was talking carelessly. I will say no more about the Brands. But I must remark that it was you who piqued my curiosity. Otherwise there is nothing extraordinary in the fact of two young men settling down with their mother in a country house, is there?"
"Nothing at all."
"And I am not likely to see anything of them. But, Janetta," said Margaret, reverting to her own affairs, "you do not sympathize with me as I thought you would. Would not you think it wrong to marry where you did not love? Seriously, Janetta?"
"Yes, seriously, I should," said Janetta, her face growing graver, and her eyes lighting up. "It is a profanation of marriage to take for your husband a man whom you don't love with your whole heart. Oh, yes, Margaret, you are quite, quite right in that—but I am sorry too, because Sir Philip seems so nice."
"And, Janetta, dear, you will help me, will you not?"
"Whenever I can, Margaret? But what can I do for you?"