"I thank you, Mrs. Halifax is well."
Lady Caroline smiled at the manner, courteous through all its coldness, which not ill became the young man. But she would not be repelled.
"I am delighted to have met you. Indeed, we must be friends. One's friends need not always be the same as one's husband's, eh, Emma? You will be enchanted with our fair bride. We must both seize the first opportunity, and come as disguised princesses to visit Mrs. Halifax."
"Again let me thank you, Lady Caroline. But—"
"No 'buts.' I am resolved. Mr. Brithwood will never find it out. And if he does—why, he may. I like you both; I intend us to be excellent friends, whenever I chance to be at Norton Bury. Don't be proud, and reject me, there's good people—the only good people I ever knew who were not disagreeable."
And leaning on her large ermine muff, she looked right into John's face, with the winning sweetness which Nature, not courts, lent to those fair features—already beginning to fade, already trying to hide by art their painful, premature decay.
John returned the look, half sorrowfully; it was so hard to give back harshness to kindliness. But a light laugh from the other lady caught his ear, and his hesitation—if hesitation he had felt-was over.
"No, Lady Caroline, it cannot be. You will soon see yourself that it cannot. Living, as we do, in the same neighbourhood, we may meet occasionally by chance, and always, I hope, with kindly feeling; but, under present circumstances—indeed, under any circumstances—intimacy between your house and ours would be impossible."
Lady Caroline shrugged her shoulders with a pretty air of pique. "As you will! I never trouble myself to court the friendship of any one. Le jeu ne vaut pas la chandelle."
"Do not mistake me," John said, earnestly. "Do not suppose I am ungrateful for your former kindness to my wife; but the difference between her and you—between your life and hers—is so extreme."