Lady Carloes found this interesting—she bent forward a little. "We're all greatly excited about her. You've kept her away from all of us and one hears such different accounts of her. And of course her success is most important—as things are just now."
Lady Adela answered, "I can tell you nothing. She isn't in the least like any of us, and I don't suppose for a moment that she'll listen to anybody. She made a friend of May Eversley in Munich, and I don't think that was the best thing for her. But you know—I've talked about this to you before."
Not only had Lady Adela talked; all of them had done so. In the Beaminster camp this appearance that Rachel was about to make was of the last importance. There were enemies, redoubtable enemies, in the field. Rachel Beaminster's bow to the world was for the very reason that all the world was watching, a responsibility for them all.
But there were many rumours. Rachel was not to be relied upon—she hated her grandmother, she was strange and foreign and morose. Lady Carloes was not happy about it, and Lady Adela's attitude now was anything but reassuring.
John Beaminster came in. Lady Carloes liked him because he was good-tempered and injudicious. He told her a number of things that nobody else ever told her, and he had so simple a mind that extracting news from it was as easy as taking plums from a pudding. He did not come over to them at once, but stood laughing with Lord Crewner and his brother. He would come, however, in a moment, so Lady Carloes made a last hurried plunge at her friend.
"What's this I hear, my dear, about Frank Breton?"
"Yes, it's perfectly true. He's come back, and has taken rooms quite near here. He wrote to mother——"
Lady Carloes took this in with a gulp of delight. "My dear Adela! What did he say?"
"Oh! a very rude letter. He told mother that he knew that she would like him to be near at hand and that they ought to let bygones be bygones, and that he was sure that she would be glad to hear that he was a reformed character. Of course he hates all of us."
"What will you all do?"