"Indeed, indeed," cried Lucy, full of compunction, "I know you are always kind. And I know your ways are different--but----" with a sort of regretful reflectiveness, shaking her head. "All England is in that but," said the Contessa. "It is what has always been said to me. In our country we love to arrange these little effects, to have surprises, impromptus, events that are unexpected. Bice, go, my child, go to bed, after this excitement you must rest. You did well, and pleased me at least. My sweet Lucy," she said, when the girl with instant obedience had disappeared into the next room, "I know how you see it all from your point of view. But we are not as you, rich, secure. We must make while we can our _coup_. To succeed by one _coup_, that is my desire. And you will not interfere?" "Oh, Contessa," cried Lucy, "will you not spare the child? It is like selling her. She is too good for such a man. He is scarcely a man; he is a boy. I am ashamed to think that you should care to please----him, or any one like him. Oh, let it come naturally! Do not plan like this, and scheme and take trouble for----" "For an establishment that will make her at once safe and sure; that will give her so many of the things that people care for--beautiful houses, a good name, money---- I have schemed, as you say, for little things much of my life," said the Contessa, shaking her head with a mournful smile; "I have told you my history: for very, very little things--for a box at the opera, for a carriage, things which are nothing, sweetest Lucy. You have plenty; such things are nothing to you. You cannot understand it. But that is me, my dear one. I have not a higher mind like you; and shall I not scheme," cried the Contessa, with sudden energy, "for the child, to make her safe that she may never require scheming? Ah, my Lucy! I have the heart of a mother to her, and you know what a mother will do." Lucy was silent, partly touched, partly resisting. If it ever could be right to do evil that good might come, perhaps this motive might justify it. And then came the question how much, in the Contessa's code, was evil, of these proceedings? She was silenced, if not satisfied. There is a certain casuistry involved in the most Christian charity: "thinketh no evil," sometimes even implies an effort to think that there is no harm in evil according to the intention in it. Lucy's intellect was confused, though not that unobtrusive faculty of judgment in her which was infallible, yet could be kept dumb.