"Not in the least. On the contrary, my language, if anything, errs on the side of being too guarded. A beautiful young girl of twenty-one, all alone in the world, with more than a hundred thousand pounds a year entirely under her own control--princes from all parts of the world will tumble over each other in their desire to find favour in your eyes."
"Then princes must be much more foolish persons than I supposed."
"My dear, of that we will say nothing. Don't let us speak evil of dignitaries. I was always brought up to think of them with respect. To return to the subject of your wardrobe. I have merely made these few remarks in order to point out to you how essential it is that you should be furnished, at the outset, with a wardrobe likely to prove equal to all the demands which are certain to be made on one in your position."
"All the same, I won't have five hundred dresses. Position or no position, I know I shall be much happier with five."
It is an undoubted fact that the young lady's equipment of costumes extended to more than five, though it stopped far short of the number which her feminine mentor considered adequate. Indeed, Mrs Stacey made no secret of her opinion that, from the social point of view, her arrangements were scarcely decent.
"At the very first serious call which is made upon your resources, you will find yourself absolutely without a thing to wear. Then you'll have to rush up to town and have clothes made for you in red-hot haste, than which nothing can be more unsatisfactory."
"I shall have to chance that. I hate shops and I hate shopping."
"My dear!"
"I do. I don't care how it is with other girls, it's like that with me. I've already had more than enough of dressmakers; for ever so long I promise you that I won't go near one for another single thing. I'm going to the country, and I'm going to live a country life; and for the kind of country life I mean to live you don't want frocks."
Mrs Stacey lifted up her hands and sighed. To her such sentiments seemed almost improper. It was obvious that Miss Arnott meant to be her own mistress in something more than name. On one question, however, she was over-ruled. That was on the question of a companion.