"Her birth is well enough," answered Marius uneasily. "Her people have never been less than gentlefolk."
He did not care to think his brother had mated too utterly beneath him, and it seemed that Susannah was making too much of it—as the matter really only interested him obliquely he would have had it taken for granted and put aside; he would have preferred to relate how he first met Aspasia in the Luxembourg gardens in Paris; Susannah could be, when she chose, a perfect listener.
But she would not suffer the subject to change. "It must be difficult for her—at first," she said. "I am very curious to see her. Lavinia hath quite a pretty sound, hath it not? I wonder if she likes riding."
"Ye seem very desirous to please her," smiled Marius.
Susannah paused before an opulent bush bearing roses red almost to a purple tinge.
"I want her to like me," she repeated.
Marius looked at his cousin; certainly she was making too much of it; he could not find Rose's wife of such importance.
"Why?" he asked. "Why do you want her to like you?"
Miss Chressham answered with an ardent gravity.