Her husband whistled, and his brows contracted a little.
"You mean to suggest, I suppose, that Miss Briscoe is the attraction," he remarked thoughtfully.
"How can I help thinking so? Both yesterday and this morning he was in the schoolroom until I heard her tell him quite severely that he must go, as he was interrupting their work. Both mornings I have asked him to drive with me, and each time he made an excuse. If Margharita's name is mentioned before him, he is either unusually silent and reserved, or very talkative. As a rule, you know, Lumley does not care for girls. That makes me all the more anxious."
"Miss Briscoe is certainly wonderfully beautiful," he said. "Yet I think that Lumley has common sense."
"He has peculiar ideas," his wife answered. "I have always been afraid of his doing something bizarre, and as you say, Margharita is wonderfully beautiful—far more so than her mother, I think. What would you advise me to do, Geoffrey?"
He stroked his long gray mustache, and looked thoughtful.
"It's a delicate matter," he said. "To even hint at the girl going away because Lumley admires her would be unjust, and, at the same time, if Lumley got an inkling of the reason it would certainly make him think more of her than he does now. You have no fault to find with her in any way?"
"None! absolutely none! Her behavior is perfect. She is proud, but I do not consider that a fault. Her manners are the manners of a perfectly-bred lady."
"And Gracie likes her?"
"Gracie adores her!"