"She does not want me in the very least," said Grace, eagerly, a plan developing itself quite suddenly in her fertile brain; "not in the very least. No, Lady Lyons, what I mean to do is----How long must I wear this?" she said, suddenly touching the crape on her dress. "Oh, Miss Rivers! You being Scotch makes such a difference; in England mourning is less and less worn as it used to be, and now people take to kilting crape it takes away from the blackness of it somehow. In Scotland you would have to wear it months and months, and as you are Scotch----" "I am only Scotch on one side of my house," exclaimed Grace, "and I do not intend to shut myself up for months and months. No, Lady Lyons, I have a plan, but I do not see much use in telling it to you, if you think I am going to dress like a mute at a funeral." "I am sure I do not wish to hear your plan," said Lady Lyons, irritated by Grace's manner and by her words, "I came to call upon your sister; will you be so good as to say that sincere sorrow for _her_ made me lay aside my invalid habits and come out." "Please don't go," said Grace, "and for goodness sake don't talk about being an invalid. I have not a lung left, so they say, or only a little bit of one, and I will not be ill or anything. Now I will tell you what I mean to do. I mean to go to London, and pay a good deal of money to some great lady, and go about with her as soon as I decently can." "My dear Miss Rivers, no very great lady would care to do this; they want nothing you can give them." "Well then a smaller one must do," said Grace calmly; "but she must know everybody, heaps of people and all that--she must be in the swim you know." "But I do not know," said Lady Lyons. "In the swim! What do you mean? I have not the faintest idea." "Oh, Paul will know." (It had already come to this: she called him Paul! Lady Lyons was extremely displeased.) "My son, whom you call 'Paul,'" she said, stiffly, "what can he do? He is but young." "Oh, he knows the world a little though he is young; of course I call him Paul." "He does know the world," said the irritated mother, "I hope he knows the world too well to be a victim to any one who is not ... in a position I should like." "You are quite wrong, dear Lady Lyons; being a man of the world, and knowing the world a little, are two very different things, and no one can call Paul a man, he is so very young; that was what I said to him only the other day. And about a position you would like, you mean your son must marry for money. Now, I have too good an opinion of Paul to believe it--and no one worth his salt will choose only to please his mother." "I am so unaccustomed to hear such ... unfeminine sentiments," and the irate Lady Lyons rose to go.