Lily had listened very dutifully, but if she had ever analyzed this submissive spirit, she might have discovered that it was founded upon a curious, calm certainty that Miss Melody knew nothing whatever of what she talked about.
Not that the daughter of Philip and Eleanor Stellenthorpe, well versed in distrusting and suppressing her own instincts, would have made such an admission to herself. She was undeveloped, and had never been allowed the luxury of intellectual honesty.
She had, as yet, arrived at no conscious weighing of her own capacities. Her nearest approach to it took the form of an inward and rather derisive wonder that Miss Melody, who so advocated forethought and preparation in respect of examinations, choice of a career, and the like, should appear to suppose that something which Lily classified to herself as "the most important thing in the world" could be best approached after a course of completely ignoring its existence and tacitly denying its potency.
In defiance of Miss Melody, Lily allowed herself to wonder whether Nicholas meant to ask her to marry him. Her upbringing and her inexperience alike admitted of no other development of affairs than a proposal of marriage, to result in either a refusal and eternal separation, or an acceptance and subsequent wedding.
She saw Nicholas Aubray almost daily.
Lily felt flattered and excited, but her now ingrained incapacity for facing an issue definitely, allowed her to keep entirely upon the surface of even her own thoughts, and when she was seized by a misgiving that she felt no slightest real wish ever to marry Nicholas Aubray, she hastily rebuked herself for the vanity of supposing that he had any intention of asking her to do so, thus suppressing her consciousness of the problem in relative values that confronted her.
It was that policy of suppression upon which her whole education had been based.
Presently Lily became aware that Miss Stellenthorpe was turning a thoughtful and critical eye upon the situation.
Her manner to her niece acquired both a more weighty tenderness, and a slightly humorous air of appraisement.
She tolerated the Marchese della Torre with renewed geniality, and only upon one occasion relegated him to a lengthy tête-à-tête walk with Lily whilst she herself strode far ahead, apparently absorbed in earnest conversation with Nicholas Aubray.