"About going away," answered Susan doggedly. "About being a month in France, and not saying Good-bye, and only having him write once a week. It seems to give him a chance of changing his mind." "Very well, Susan. Shall we tear this up? How will it be to write and tell Lord Ruddington that you will be disengaged to-morrow morning at eleven o’clock?" "Oh no, Miss, please no!" gasped Susan, turning pale. "I couldn’t, really I couldn’t. I could never face him." "Why not?" Tears came into Susan’s eyes. "I should be as dumb as a fish, Miss. I should just sit and sit and never be able to say a word--and then he’d think I was stupid and he’d go away." "So I think myself," I said. "That’s why this letter is sensible. After he’s written to you two or three times, you’ll feel less strange and more able to meet him." "Yes, Miss. But it’s such a long way and such a long time. He might change his mind." "Susan," I began, with all the grown-up, worldly-wise solemnity I could muster, "listen to me. If he’s going to change his mind as easy as that, won’t you be better without him?" Susan looked dubious. "I don’t think I would go as far as that, Miss," she said candidly. Evidently it was necessary to rub the truth well in. "Susan," I said, "I admit that lords don’t marry lady’s-maids every day. This case is unusual. But it isn’t the first. Before we were born, dukes have married dairy-maids and earls have married their cooks. A few of them have been happy all their lives long. Most of them have been miserable before the end of the honeymoon." Susan began to pout. I piled it on thicker. "I won’t mention names," I said. "But I know a case myself. The son of a duke took a fancy to a poor governess, and married her for her looks. He was infatuated with her at first sight, he followed her everywhere, he wouldn’t take her refusal, he quarrelled with his father for her sake: and at last he got her. What happened? Although she was as well educated as he was, he tired of her in a year." "But I suppose, Miss, she has all she wants?" said Susan, pouting harder than ever. "She has all she wants," I replied scornfully, "in the way of house and clothes and food. But, Susan, think. What if she wants _him_?" Susan was silent. I drove it home. "What if she wants _him_? And what if she hardly ever sees him? Susan, I don’t care to talk to you about such things; but this affair of Lord Ruddington is too serious for mincing words. The reason why the woman I’m telling you about never sees her husband is that he’s the slave of another woman--a woman neither so pretty nor so clever nor so good-tempered nor even so well-born as his poor wife. Susan, would you like a life like that, even if you could live it in silks and old laces amidst all the luxury of Ruddington Towers?" Susan was blushing hotly, as I had intended and hoped she would.