"Yes: I saw her one day in Paris. She did not know, of course, that I was watching her. She is like her mother."
The tone was unpromising. But perhaps it would have been as well if Rosalind Romaine had not murmured so pityingly—
"My poor friend! What you have suffered—and oh, what you will suffer!"
Brooke looked at her in silence, and his eyes softened. Mrs. Romaine seemed to him at that moment the incarnation of all that was sweet and womanly. She was slender, pale, graceful: she had velvety dark eyes and picturesque curling hair, cut short like a Florentine boy's. Her dress was harmonious in color and design; her attitude was charming, her voice most musical. It crossed Mr. Brooke's mind, as it had crossed his mind before, that he might have been very happy if Providence had sent him a wife like Rosalind Romaine.
"I shall not suffer," he said, after a little silence, "because I will not suffer. My daughter will live for a year in my house, but she will not trouble my peace, I can assure you. She will go her own way, and I shall go mine."
"I am afraid that she will not be so passive as you think," said Mrs. Romaine, with some hesitation. "She has been brought up in a very different school from any that you would recommend. A girl fresh from a French convent is not an easy person to deal with. Whatever may be the advantages of these convents, there are certain virtues which are not inculcated in them."
"Such as——"
"Truth and honesty, Caspar, my friend. Your daughter's accomplishments will not include candor, I fear."
Mr. Brooke was silent for a moment, his face expressing more concern than he knew. Mrs. Romaine watched him furtively.
"It may be so," he said at last in a rather heavy tone, "but it can't be helped. I had no hand in choosing a school for her, Rosalind"—his voice took a pleading tone "you will do your best for her? You will be her friend in spite of defects in her training?"