She gave a half-humorous sigh.
“Well, darling, I’m sorry to hear that. But it isn’t anything so very new, is it? You’ve pulled a long face over Frances ever since I can remember you both, when she was a little scared thing who didn’t dare call her soul her own. I don’t mean you ever bullied her, my dear—but there is such a thing as over-solicitude, you know.”
Accustomed though Rosamund was to her guardian’s kindly banter on the subject of Frances, she had never ceased to resent it with the wounded fury of an over-sensitive child.
Instantly she resolved that it would be impossible to tell Cousin Bertie of her new-born dread.
“Well,” said Mrs. Tregaskis, “what is it this time? Is she tired, or has she got a cold, or has Nina been hurting her feelings? Out with it.”
Rosamund asked herself desperately: “Why was I such a fool as to begin this?” and aloud said in a sort of uncertain tone which to her own ears sounded very unconvincing:
“I was just thinking of her having become a Catholic, and all that. Whether—whether she’ll be happier now, or—want anything more.”
It was the nearest she could get to the sudden terror that had lain like lead at her heart ever since that silent interchange of looks with Frances.
“Want anything more!” Mrs. Tregaskis repeated rather derisively. “Are you afraid of her asking to join the Salvation Army next? Upon my word, Rosamund, I think better of the child than you do. She was very silly and wrong-headed about it, but at least it was all perfectly genuine, and she’s in earnest about the religious part of it.”
“Yes. I know she is. That’s just it.”