When they met the old General taking his stroll too, before dinner, that leathern old Indian was dazzled by the bright creature, who walked along between them, almost as tall as the two men, with her graceful careless step and independent ways, not deferring to them as the other ladies did, but leading the conversation. Even General Gaunt began to think whether there was any one whom he could speak of, any one he had known, whom perhaps this young exponent of Society might know. She knew everybody. Even princes and princesses had no mystery for her. She told them what everybody said, with an air of knowing better, which in her meant no conceit or presumption, as in other young persons. Constance was quite unconscious of the possibility of being thus judged. She was not self-conscious at all. She was pleased to bring out her news for the advantage of the seniors. Frances was none the wiser when her sister told her the change that had come over the Grandmaisons, or how Lord Sunbury’s marriage had been brought about, and why people now had altered their hours for the Row. Frances listened; but she had never heard about Lord Sunbury’s marriage, nor why it should shock the elegant public. But the gentleman remembered his father, or they knew how young men commit themselves without intending it. It is not to be supposed that there was anything at all _risqué_ in Constance’s talk. She touched, indeed, upon the edge of scandals which had been in the newspapers, and therefore were known even to people in the Riviera; but she did it with the most absolute innocence, either not knowing or not understanding the evil. “I believe there was something wrong, but I don’t know what--mamma would never tell me,” she said. Her conversation was like a very light graceful edition of a Society paper--not then begun to be--with all the nastiness and almost all the malice left out. But not quite all; there was enough to be piquant. “I am afraid I am a little ill-natured; but I don’t like that man,” she would say now and then. When she said, “I don’t like that woman,” the gentlemen laughed. She was conscious of having a little success, and she was pleased too. Frances perhaps might be a better housekeeper, but Constance could not but think that in the equally important work of amusing papa she would be more successful than Frances. It was not much of a triumph, perhaps, for a girl who had known so many; but yet it was the only one as yet possible in the position in which she now was. “I suppose it is settled that Frances is to go?” she said, as General Gaunt took the way to his bungalow, and she and her father turned towards home. “She seems to have settled it for herself,” he said. “I am always repeating she is so like mamma--that is exactly what mamma would have done. They are very positive. You and I, papa, are not positive at all.”