“Oh! I’ve no objection to it,” he carelessly replied. “I am not in love with either Carimon or his wife, and don’t care how little I see of them.”
“He cannot come, having a private class on to-night. And I could not invite Miss Featherston without Mary Carimon,” pleaded Nancy.
“Just so. I am not objecting.”
With this somewhat ungracious assent, Nancy had to content herself. She ordered a gâteau Suisse, the nicest sort of gâteau to be had at Sainteville; and told Flore that she must for once remain for the evening.
The guests appeared punctually at seven o’clock. Such a thing as being invited for one hour, and strolling in an hour or two after it, was a mark of English breeding never yet heard of in the simple-mannered French town. Miss Featherston, a smart, lively young woman, wore a cherry-coloured silk; Mary Carimon was in black; she had gone into slight mourning for Lavinia. Good little Monsieur Jules had put a small band on his hat.
Captain Fennel was not at home to tea, and the ladies had it all their own way in the matter of talking. What with items of news from the old home, Buttermead, and Stella’s telling about her own plans, the conversation never flagged a moment.
“Yes, that’s what I am going to Paris for,” said Stella, explaining her plans. “I don’t seem likely to marry, for nobody comes to ask me, and I mean to go out in the world and make a little money. It is a sin and a shame that a healthy girl, the eldest of three sisters, should be living upon her poor mother in idleness. Not much of a girl, you may say, for I was three-and-thirty last week! but we all like to pay ourselves compliments when age is in question.”
Nancy laughed. Almost the first time she had laughed since Lavinia’s death.
“So you are going to Paris to learn French, Stella!”
“I am going to Paris to learn French, Nancy,” assented Miss Featherston. “I know it pretty well, but when I come to speak it I am all at sea; and you can’t get out as a governess now unless you speak it fluently. At each of the two situations I applied for in Worcestershire, it was the one fatal objection: ‘We should have liked you, Miss Featherston, but we can only engage a lady who will speak French with the children.’ So I made my mind up to speak French; and I wrote to good Monsieur Jules Carimon, and he has found me a place to go to in Paris, where not a soul in the household speaks English. He says, and I say, that in six months I shall chatter away like a native,” she concluded, laughing.