Mrs. Brenton at luncheon gave it as her opinion that the change she had remarked in Rupert Haverford denoted more than a surface alteration.
"I am convinced," she said, "he is going to marry an American. Isn't it too abominable? I am so disappointed."
"When I marry," observed Betty, "I'm going to keep hens, speckley yellow ones. You know the sort, Baby, same as the one you chooced out of Aunt Brenny's garden."
"Chased," corrected Caroline.
"Chased," said Betty, then, in a different tone, "How red you are, Caroline, quite like as if you was boiled."
"Well," said Mr. Brenton in his quiet way, "you were saying the other day you wanted him to marry, you know."
"So I do," agreed Agnes Brenton, "but I did not suppose he would care about an American wife."
They discussed the probable union for some time.
It struck Caroline as so strange that both these people should regard it as natural and certain that he should marry, and not from a mere sense of duty, but from inclination, even from affection.
"Do they forget so easily?" she asked herself.