Lavinia smiles, but cautiously; and then, illuminated by a sudden suggestion of valid consolation, speaks.
“You may make your mind easy, they will never accept her! She has none of the qualifications.”
A slightly soothed expression comes over the visitor’s perturbed features.
“It seems an odd thing to say of one’s own child, but I must say that there is no one that I would not rather have about me than Féo when I am at all poorly; and Mr. Prince is just the same.”
“Then do not waste time in worrying!” says Lavinia, with bracing cheerfulness; herself encouraged by the success of her mode of reassurance. “She will infallibly get a polite No for her answer, and you will never hear anything more about it.”
“You are wrong there,” replies Féodorovna’s mother with rueful shrewdness. “She is sure to tell us about it. Féo has an odd way of boasting about things that other people would be ashamed of!”
“It is impossible to contradict this assertion, and with a passing wonder and pity for a love cursed with such good eyes,” Lavinia repeats, in despair of finding anything better, her already-tried-and-found-wanting anodyne.
“Well, at all events, nothing will come of it.”
“And what will her next move be? I ask you that! What will her next move be?” inquires Mrs. Prince, in dreary triumph.
The pride of having proposed an insoluble riddle kindles a funeral torch in each eye. The question, as the too clear-sighted parent had expected, stumps Miss Carew, nor can any of the hysterical indelicacies which pass through her mind as likely to illustrate Féodorovna’s future course be decently dressed enough to be presented as hypotheses to Féodorovna’s mother.