“But you must recollect that it will soon be getting very hot; and even the people who live there will be going away. Mr Durant sometimes takes the duty at Homburg or one of those places; and the Gaunts come home to England; and even we——”
Here Frances paused for a moment to watch him, and she thought that the pencil with which he was still writing down all these precious details, paused too. He looked up at her, as if waiting for further information. “Yes?” he said interrogatively.
“Even we—go up among the mountains where it is cooler,” she said.
He looked a little thoughtful at this; but presently threw her back into perplexity by saying calmly: “That would not matter to me so much, since I am quite sincere in thinking that when one goes to a health-place, one should give one’s self up to one’s health. But unfortunately, or perhaps I should say fortunately, Miss Waring, England is just as good as anywhere else in the summer; and Dr Lull has not thought it necessary this year to send me away. But I feel quite set up with your renseignements,” he added, putting back his book into his pocket, “and I certainly shall think of it for another year.”
Frances had been so singled out for the purpose of giving the young invalid information, that she found herself a little apart from the party when he went away. They were all ladies, and all intimates, and the unaccustomed girl was not prepared for the onslaught of this curious and eager, though so pretty and fashionable mob. “What are those renseignements you have been giving him? Is he going off after Con? Has he been questioning you about Con? We are all dying to know. And what do you think she will say to him if he goes out after her?” cried all, speaking together, those soft eager voices, to which Frances did not know how to reply.
CHAPTER XXVII.
Frances became accustomed to the presence of young Ramsay after this. He appeared almost every day, very often in the afternoon, eager for tea, and always disposed to inquire for further renseignements, though he was quite certain that he was not to leave England till autumn at the earliest. She began to regard him as a younger brother, or cousin at the least—a perfectly harmless individual, with whom she could talk when he wanted her with a gentle complacence, without any reference to her own pleasure. As a matter of fact, it did not give her any pleasure to talk to Claude. She was kind to him for his sake; but she had no desire for his presence on her own account. It surprised her that he ever could have been thought of as a possible mate for Constance. Constance was so much cleverer, so much more advanced in every way than herself, that to suppose she could put up with what Frances found so little attractive, was a constant amazement to the girl. She could not but express this on one of the occasions, not so very frequent as she had expected, on which her mother and she were alone together.
“Is it really true,” she said at the end of a long silence, “that there was a question of a—marriage between Constance and Mr Ramsay?”
“It is really quite true,” said her mother with a smile. “And why not? Do you disapprove?”
“It is not that I disapprove—I have no right to disapprove; it is only that it seems so impossible.”