'I don't know Elise, my dear. There you are right. But I do know that Elise, the daughter of Monsieur de Delauret and the granddaughter of the old Vicomte d'Artois, is bred and born a gentlewoman. You cannot turn your back on your own class and take the peasant view against them. And has not Elise been your companion and playfellow all these years? Leave for a moment this present problem—a difficult one, I grant you—and consider Elise in the light of a ten years' friendship. What have you against her?
'Nothing,' said Marion falteringly. 'That is, until Aunt Keziah came and made me somehow see Elise in a different way. And—besides——'
'The "besides,"' smiled Lady Fairfax, 'is generally the root of the whole matter.'
Marion's cream and gold lace dress had been taken off, and a light dressing-gown thrown about her, and Lady Fairfax, similarly disrobed, was tending the long russet hair.
With her brush swish swish through the shining tresses, Lady Fairfax waited. 'And besides?'
In as few words as possible Marion told the story of Jack Poole's arrest, and Elise's vindictive remarks at supper.
'What did your father say?'
'He was angry. I never saw him angry with her before. It was not only unkind of Elise, but 'twas a most dangerous thing to say, as Father explained. You don't know one hundredth part of the horror of that rising in the West, Aunt Constance. If one of the servants had heard her, and there had chanced to be a countryman, a tinker or a packman, in the kitchens—and of course you know passing folk are always welcomed by the servants—Roger might have been hanged on the strength of that.'
The lady was silent a moment. 'Well, well,' she resumed, 'Roger was not hanged. But, my dear love, for a girl coming to womanhood you are strangely blind. Have you not told me before that this youth Roger could not abide Elise?'
'No more he could. Well?'