“I must talk to Richard,” she thought. “He knows the world better than I do. I am almost as much a child as Laura.”
While Mrs. Monckton sat looking absently at the fire, and trying to imagine how the advent of the Frenchman might be made subservient to the scheme of her life, Miss Mason burst into a torrent of panegyric upon the stranger’s appearance.
“He’s such a good-natured-looking dear,” she exclaimed, “with curly hair and a moustache just like the Emperor’s; and the idea of my frightening myself so about him, and thinking he was a dreadful creature in a slouched hat, and with his coat-collar turned up to hide his face, come to arrest Launcelot for some awful crime. I’m not a bit frightened now, and I hope Launcelot will bring him in to tea. The idea of his being a foreigner, too! I think foreigners are so interesting. Don’t you, Nelly?”
Eleanor Monckton looked up at the sound of her name. She had not heard a word that Laura had said.
“What, dear?” she asked, listlessly.
“Don’t you think foreigners interesting, Nelly?” repeated the young lady.
“Interesting? No.”
“What! not Frenchmen?”
Mrs. Monckton gave a faint shiver.
“Frenchmen!” she said. “No, I don’t like them, I——. How do I know, Laura? Baseness and treachery belong to no peculiar people, I suppose?”