“It’s my way. You ought to know that. And I can’t control my tongue any more than Reginald can control his body.” “Caroline!” “And I don’t want to. We’re all wrapped up in cotton-wool nowadays. I ought to have lived in another century. I, too, would have adorned a court, and kept it lively! There’s no wit left in the world, and there’s no wickedness of the right kind. We might as well be Nonconformists at once.” “Certainly not,” Sophia said firmly. “Certainly not that.” “But as you so cleverly remind me, there are no kings in Radstowe. There’s not even,” she added with a mocking smile which made her face gay in a ghastly way, “not even a foreign Count who would turn out an impostor. Rose would do very well there, too. An imitation foreign Count with a black moustache and no money! She would be magnificent and tragic. Imagine them at Monte Carlo, keeping it up! She would hate him, grandly; she would hate herself for being deceived; she would never lose her dignity. You can’t picture Rose with a droop or a tear. They’d trail about the Continent and she would never come back.” “But we don’t want her to go away at all,” Sophia cried. “And when she came to the point of being afraid of murdering him, she would leave him without any fuss and live alone and mysterious somewhere in the South of France, or Italy, or Spain. Yes, Spain. There must be real Counts there and she would get her love affair at last.” “But she would still be married.” “Of course!” Caroline, looking roguish, was terrible. “That is necessary for a love affair, _ma chère_.” “I would much rather she married Francis Sales and came to see us every week. Or any other nice young man in Radstowe. She would never marry beneath her.” “On the contrary,” Caroline remarked, “she’s bound to marry beneath her—not in class, Sophia, not in class, though in Radstowe that’s possible, too. Look at the Battys! But certainly in brains and manners.” Sophia, clinging to her own idea, repeated plaintively, “I would rather it were Francis Sales, and he must be lonely in that big house.” It appeared, however, that he was not to be lonely, for Susan, entering with hot water, let fall in her discreet, impersonal way, another piece of gossip. “John Gibbs says they think Mr. Francis must be bringing home a wife, Miss Caroline. He’s having some of the rooms done up.” “Ah!” said Caroline, and her plump elbow pressed Sophia’s. “Which rooms, I wonder?” “I did not inquire, Miss Caroline.” “Then kindly inquire this afternoon, and tell him the butter is deteriorating, but inquire first or you’ll get nothing out of him.” She turned with malicious triumph to Sophia. “So that dream’s over!” “We shall have to break it to her gently,” Sophia said; “but it may not be true.”