“Why?” cried Lady Markham quickly, with an astonished glance. Then she added with a smile: “I am afraid you will see nothing but harm in any plan of mine. Unfortunately, Con did not like the gentleman whom I approved. I should not have put any force upon her. One can’t nowadays, if one wished to. It is contrary, as she says herself, to the spirit of the times. But if you will allow me to say so, Caroline, Con is too like her father to bear anything, to put up with anything that——”
“Thank heaven!” cried Mrs Clarendon. “She is indeed a little like her dear father, notwithstanding a training so different. And this one, I suppose—this one you find like you?”
“I am happy to think she is a little, in externals at least,” said Lady Markham, taking Frances’ hand in her own. “But Edward has brought her up, Caroline; that should be a passport to your affections at least.”
Upon this, Mrs Clarendon came down as from a pedestal, and addressed herself to the girl, over whose astonished head this strange dialogue had gone. “I am afraid, my dear, you will think me very hard and disagreeable,” she said. “I will not tell you why, though I think I could make out a case. How is your dear father? He writes seldomer and seldomer—sometimes not even at Christmas; and I am afraid you have little sense of family duties, which is a pity at your age.”
Frances did not know how to reply to this accusation, and she was confused and indignant, and little disposed to attempt to please. “Papa,” she said, “is very well. I have heard him say that he could not write letters—our life was so quiet: there was nothing to say.”
“Ah, my dear, that is all very well for strangers, or for those who care more about the outside than the heart. But he might have known that anything, everything would be interesting to me. It is just your quiet life that I like to hear about. Society has little attraction for me. I suppose you are half an Italian, are you? and know nothing about English life.”
“She looks nothing but English,” said Lady Markham in a sort of parenthesis.
“The only people I know are English,” said Frances. “Papa is not fond of society. We see the Gaunts and the Durants, but nobody else. I have always tried to be like my own country-people, as well as I could.”
“And with great success, my dear,” said her mother with a smiling look.
Mrs Clarendon said nothing, but looked at her with silent criticism. Then she turned to Lady Markham. “Naturally,” she said, “I should like to make acquaintance with my niece, and hear all the details about my dear brother; but that can’t be done in a morning call. Will you leave her with me for the day? Or may I have her to-morrow, or the day after? Any time will suit me.”