"It's too late—it's not as if she were young."
"Young? She's a good deal younger than I am, though she's thirty and I'm twenty-four—twenty-five next September. Frida's young because she's got the body of a woman, the mind of a man, and the soul of a baby. She'll begin where other women end, will Frida. Wait till she's been abroad with me, and you'll see how her soul will come on, in a more congenial climate."
"Where are you going?"
"We're going everywhere. Venice—Rome—Florence—the Mediterranean—the regular thing. And to all sorts of queer outlandish places besides—Scandinavia, the Hebrides, and Iceland; everywhere that you can go to by sea. The sea——That's you again."
"The deuce it is! I doubt if I've done the kind thing, then. I seem to have roused passions which will never be satisfied. When she comes back——"
Miss Chatterton's voice sank. "She never will come back."
"Never? How about the Colonel?"
Miss Chatterton smiled. "That's the beauty of it. It's the neatest, sweetest, completest little plot that ever was invented, and it's simplicity itself, like its inventor—that's me. I suppose you know all about Mrs. Fazakerly?"
"Well, not all. Who could know all about Mrs. Fazakerly?"
"You know enough, I daresay. By taking her away—I mean Frida—we force the Colonel's hand."