“Which means that you know perfectly well where we are going, but won't tell it. Well, I resign myself to my interesting part of 'Captive Princess' all the more submissively, since every place is new to me, every town an object of interest, every village a surprise.”
“You 'd like to see the world,—the real, the great world, I mean?” asked Beecher.
“Oh, how much!” cried she, clasping her hands in eagerness, as she arose.
Beecher watched her as she walked up and down the room, every movement of her graceful figure displaying dignity and pride, her small and beautifully shaped head slightly thrown back, while, as her hand held the folds of her dress, her march had something almost stage-like in its sweeping haughtiness. “And how she would become it!” muttered he, below his breath, but yet leaving the murmured sounds half audible.
“What are you saying, sir? Any disparaging sentiment on school-girl conceit or curiosity?”
“Something very like the opposite,” said Beecher. “I was whispering to myself that Grantley House and Rocksley Castle were the proper sphere for you.”
“Are these very splendid?” asked she, calmly.
“The best houses in England. Of their owners, one is a Duke with two hundred thousand a year, the other an Earl with nearly as much.”
“And what do they do with it?”
“Everything; all that money can have—and what is there it cannot?—is there. Gorgeous houses, horses, dress, dinners, pictures, plate, the best people to visit them, the best cook, the best deer-park, the fastest yacht at Cowes, the best hunting-stable at Melton.”