After awhile Lady Randolph found herself capable of smiling, when she was fully convinced of the girl’s innocence. “What a good thing you are not _out_, my dear. I can’t be sufficiently thankful you are not out. You see by this, Lucy, what a dangerous thing it is to be kind to anybody. You, with your prospects, can not be sufficiently careful. Have you ever thought that you are different from other girls? that there are reasons why I must take a great deal more care of you-- I, who think girls ought always to be taken care of?” Lady Randolph said. “I know that I have a great deal of money,” said Lucy quietly. “I suppose, Lady Randolph, that is what you mean?” “My dear, if it were only in novels, you must have read that girls who have great fortunes are run after by all sorts of unworthy people; and innocent girls like you are apt to be deceived when people are civil. Lucy, my love, this is a great deal too broad a compliment,” said Lady Randolph, very solemnly, laying her hand upon the book; “you must not be taken in. No man who really cared for you, no _nice_ man, would have held you up to the notice of society in this way.” “Cared for me?” said Lucy, “but I never supposed he did that. Why should he care for me?” Lady Randolph looked at her charge with great perplexity of mind. Was this innocence, or was such simplicity credible? Had the girl never heard of fortune-hunters? All girls in society were aware of the dangers which attended an heiress; but Lucy had not been brought up in society. She did not know what to think; finally, however, she determined that it was better, if they did not already exist there, to put no such ideas into the head of her _ingénue_. For Lady Randolph, who had no clew to the graver cares which occupied Lucy’s mind, had not thought of her, as yet, in any character except that of _ingénue_. She stopped herself in the half-completed sentence which she had begun before this reflection came to her aid. “He must want you to think he cares--it is a beginning of--” Here she stopped, and laughed uneasily. “No, no, I dare say I am wrong. It is my over-anxiety. Let us say it is only an indiscretion. Young men are always doing things which are _gauche_ and inappropriate. And you have so much good sense, Lucy--” Lady Randolph got up and came behind Lucy’s chair, and gave her a hasty kiss. “I have perfect confidence in your good sense. You will not let your head be turned by fine words, as so many girls do?”