"I suppose it's the way all mothers feel. Of course, I want to be sure that he is to be very, very happy."
"That is perfectly natural. And he WILL be happy."
If either of them recalled the strenuous efforts Mrs. Wrandall had made a couple of years before to get her only daughter married off to a degenerate young English duke, the thought was submerged in the present sea of sentimentality. It speaks well for Vivian's character that she flatly refused to be given in marriage, although it appeared to be the fashion at the time. It was the year of the coronation.
"Miss Castleton is a most uncommon girl," said Mrs. Wrandall, again apropos of nothing that had gone before.
"Most English girls are," agreed her friend, scenting something.
"I mean to say, she is so unlike the girls one sees in society. My husband says she's level-headed. Sound as a rivet, he also says. Nothing silly or flip about her, he adds when he is particularly enthusiastic, and he knows I hate the word 'flip.' Of course he means flippant. He is very much taken with her."
Mrs. Rowe-Martin pondered a moment before risking her next remark.
"I can't quite understand her taking up with Sara Gooch in this fashion. You know what I mean. Sara is the last person in the world you'd think a gently bred person would—" Here she pulled herself up with a jerk. "I mean, of course, a gently bred girl. Naturally she would appeal to men—and gently bred men, at that. But this present intimacy—well, isn't it rather extraordinary?"
Mrs. Wrandall drained her cup, without taking her eyes from the face of her friend.
"You must remember, my dear Harriet, that Miss Castleton looks upon Sara as a Wrandall, not a Gooch. She was the wife of a Wrandall. That covers everything so far as the girl is concerned. I dare say she finds Sara amusing, interesting, and we all know she is kindness itself. It doesn't surprise me that Miss Castleton admires her, or that she loves her. Sara has improved in the last seven or eight years." She said this somewhat loftily.