"Then I fancy it must be because she is not quite sincere. I do not like saying anything so unkind. You must not let it prejudice you against her; but she gives me always the impression of a person who leads two lives—one that everybody sees and one that nobody understands save herself."
"How old should you imagine her to be?" I asked; and again my sister looked uneasily at me.
"We have been in the habit of considering her a young girl," she replied, "but do you know, Edgar, I believe she is more than thirty?"
"It is impossible!" I cried. "Why, Clare, she does not look a day more than eighteen."
"She is what the French people call well preserved. She will look no older for the next ten years. She has a girl's figure and a girl's face, but a woman's heart, Edgar, I am sure of it."
"She is thirty, you say, and has been here for five years; that would make her a woman of twenty-five before she left France. A French woman of twenty-five has lived her life."
"That is just what I mean," she replied. "Rely upon it, for all her girlish face and girlish ways, Coralie d'Aubergne has lived hers."
"Clare," I asked, half shyly, "how do you like Miss Thesiger?"
A look bright as a sunbeam came over my sister's face.
"Ah! hers is a beautiful nature—sweet, frank, candid, transparent—no two lives there, Edgar. Her face is as pure as a lily, and her soul is the same. No need to turn from me, dear; I read your secret when she came in. If you give me such a sister as that I shall be grateful to you."