Francesca laughed with genuine amusement.
“I suppose she is really wonderfully well up in all the subjects she talks about,” was her provocative comment.
Henry grew possibly conscious of the fact that he was being drawn out on the subject of Eliza Barnet, and he presently turned on to a more personal topic.
“From the general air of tranquillity about the house I presume Comus has gone back to Thaleby,” he observed.
“Yes,” said Francesca, “he went back yesterday. Of course, I’m very fond of him, but I bear the separation well. When he’s here it’s rather like having a live volcano in the house, a volcano that in its quietest moments asks incessant questions and uses strong scent.”
“It is only a temporary respite,” said Henry; “in a year or two he will be leaving school, and then what?”
Francesca closed her eyes with the air of one who seeks to shut out a distressing vision. She was not fond of looking intimately at the future in the presence of another person, especially when the future was draped in doubtfully auspicious colours.
“And then what?” persisted Henry.
“Then I suppose he will be upon my hands.”
“Exactly.”