"She said you were very beautiful—"
"Did she?—how good of her!"
"No; I forgot. It—it was I that said that; and she said—what was it she said? She said, that after all, beauty was but skin deep—and that she valued you for your virtues and prudence rather than your good looks."
"Virtues and prudence! She said I was prudent and virtuous?"
"Yes."
"And you talked of my beauty? That was so kind of you. You didn't either of you say anything about other matters?"
"What other matters?"
"Oh! I don't know. Only some people are sometimes valued rather for what they've got than for any good qualities belonging to themselves intrinsically."
"That can never be the case with Miss Dunstable; especially not at Courcy Castle," said Frank, bowing easily from the corner of the sofa over which he was leaning.
"Of course not," said Miss Dunstable; and Frank at once perceived that she spoke in a tone of voice differing much from that half-bantering, half-good-humoured manner that was customary with her. "Of course not: any such idea would be quite out of the question with Lady de Courcy." She paused for a moment, and then added in a tone different again, and unlike any that he had yet heard from her:—"It is, at any rate, out of the question with Mr Frank Gresham—of that I am quite sure."