It seemed that she wanted nothing in particular. She talked to him for half a minute outside his room, and then went downstairs to join the rest.
That evening Ella found herself in a corner of the Long Gallery with Lady Grafton, with whom she had made friends.
"You're looking very beautiful to-night," said her ladyship, with an appraising and approving eye on her, "and most surprisingly young. How old are you, exactly? I should have said about nineteen."
"Thank you very much," said Ella. "I'm twenty-five. Sometimes I feel immeasurably older, but my happiest state is when I can think of myself as still a girl."
"Well, you look like one to-night; as I said, about nineteen. I can't think why you haven't married again. You must often have thought of it."
She blushed, quite like a girl. She was tall and slim and upright, and had some of the lithe grace of a beautiful Greek boy. She was beautiful in feature and colouring too, though it was not the kind of beauty that is always radiantly apparent, as Beatrix's was. But to-night she was at her best, and deserved the encomiums passed upon her by Lady Grafton, who was nothing if not critical.
"Nobody has wanted me," she said.
"Oh, come, my dear! Don't tell me that you've been about as much as you have, and with all you have to offer, without attracting the foolish race of men."
"Anyhow, nobody has wanted me whom I have wanted. My first experience wasn't a very happy one. I suppose you know that, and there's no harm in saying so."
"Not a bit. But you're through with it, and it hasn't left much mark. None that I can see, except that you're wiser. You wouldn't marry again without knowing what you were letting yourself in for. Men are easy enough to judge if you look at them with your eyes open. Of course when you're once in love with them you don't. But you can marry first and fall in love afterwards. It saves lots of bothers and gives you something interesting to do at the beginning of married life, which is apt to be rather dull."