"A band playing!" Lucy's laugh at the absurdity of the idea rang out with all the gaiety of a child. It amused her beyond measure, and Bice, always encouraged by approbation, went on.
"I expected it every morning. The house is so large. I thought the season, perhaps, was just beginning, and the people not arrived yet. Sometimes we go like that too soon. The rooms are cheaper. You can make your own arrangement."
Lucy looked at her very compassionately. "That is why you pass the mornings in your own room," she said, "were you never then in a country house before?"
"I do not know what is a country house. We have been in a great castle where there was the chase every day. No, that is not what la chasse means in England—to shoot I would say. And then in the evening the theatre, tableaux, or music. But to be quiet all day and all night too, that is what I have never seen. We have never known it. It is confusing. It makes you feel as if all went on without any division; all one day, all one night."
Bice laughed, but Lucy looked somewhat grave. "This is our natural life in England," she said; "we like to be quiet; though I have not thought we were very quiet, we have had people almost every night."
To this Bice made no reply. But at Lucy's next question she stared, not understanding what it meant. "You go everywhere with the Contessa," she said; "are you out?"
"Out!" Bice's eyes opened wide. She shook her head. "What is out?" she said.
"It is when a girl begins to go to parties—when she comes out of her home, out of the schoolroom, from being just a little girl——"
"Ah, I know! From the Convent," said Bice; "but I never was there."
"And have you always gone to parties—all your life?" asked Lucy, with wondering eyes.