"That's what I've told myself. She will be very careful, I know, to let it make as little difference between her and me as possible. But it can't be quite the same as it has been. She has given her love to him, and I must be second where I've been first. But when she's once married he'll have his place and I shall have mine. We shan't clash in any way. I'm happier about B now than I was for the month or two before she was married." It was the first time he had alluded to Beatrix's attitude towards him at that time. "I think B was selfish," she said at once. "Caroline won't be like that. Her love is as deep as B's--deeper, for she has a deeper nature--but it will not carry her away in the same way. She will never hurt others who love her." "I should like to see her happily married, you know. She'll be more than she's ever been. It will complete her. She's one of the _right_ people, Dragon. The deeper you go down, the more you find." "Yes, she's like that, the dear child. And she has gained greatly in character since we came to live here." "You've seen that, have you?" "Oh, yes. It's the good simplicity in her." "That's what she says she sees in him; it's where they come together. Well, he'll have his regular job here, next year. It won't be much, but with what I shall give her they could begin. They could have Stone Cottage. Do you think Caroline has thought of that at all?" "She hasn't said anything about it. But it would be just the right beginning for them; and it would be delightful for us to have her so near." "We should have to think of it as having _them_ so near, shouldn't we? It would mean a lot to me, and to you too, and the children, to have her here; but--. Well, I've said nothing about it to her or to him yet. They may have some idea that they ought to wait till he can do it all, or most of it, for her. I don't want to claim more than is my right in her, Dragon. I've had a bit of a lesson about that with B, you know." "I think he would have no right to object to her doing more to support their home than he can at first. It is just where the difference, that you can't get over, comes in. Caroline ought not to be kept waiting because he is not the sort of young man she would have been expected to marry. What you would give her would help in any case, as it helps with Beatrix. It is only that in this case it would help much more. It would be just one of the many things she would bring him that he is very fortunate to get with her. It would be a test of the large simplicity she sees in him if he took it gratefully, and without question." He laughed at her. "Why, Dragon," he said. "I believe, after all, you take Worthing's view of it--that it's infernal impudence of him to expect to get Caroline at all." She smiled in return. "I have every hope that he will prove worthy of her," was all the answer she made to this charge.