In the dining-room over which the General’s portrait tried, and failed, to preside, as he himself had done in life, and where he was conquered by an earlier and a later generation, by the shining eloquence of the old furniture and silver and the living flesh and blood of his children, Caroline gave Rose the news without, Sophia thought, a spark of delicacy. “They say Francis Sales is bringing home a wife.” “Really?” Rose said, taking toast. “He has sent orders for part of the house to be done up.” Rose raised her eyes. “Ah, she’s hurt,” Sophia thought, but Rose merely said, “If he touches the drawing-room or the study I shall never forgive him”; and then, thoughtfully, she added, “but he won’t touch the drawing-room.” “H’m, he’ll do what his wife tells him, I imagine. No girl will appreciate Mrs. Sales’s washy paintings.” “Rose would,” Sophia sighed. “Yes, I do,” Rose said cheerfully. She was too cheerful for Sophia’s romantic little theory, but an acuter audience would have found her too cheerful for herself. She had overdone it by half a tone, but the exaggeration was too fine for any ears but her own. She was, as a matter of fact, in the grip of a violent anger. She was not the kind of woman to resent the new affections of a rejected lover, but she had, through her own folly, attached herself to Francis Sales, as, less unreasonably, his tears had once attached him to her, and the immaterial nature of the bond composed its strength. Consciously foolish as her thoughts had been, they became at that breakfast table, with the water bubbling in the spirit kettle and the faint crunch of Caroline eating toast, intensely real, and she was angry both with herself and with his unfaithfulness. She did not love him—how could she?—but he belonged to her; and now, if this piece of gossip turned out to be true, she must share him with another. Jealousy, in its usual sense, she had none as yet, but she had forged a chain she was to find herself unable to break. It was her pride to consider herself a hard young person, without spirituality, without sentiment, yet all her personal relationships were to be of the fantastic kind she now experienced, all her obligations such as others would have ignored. “We shall know more when John Gibbs brings the afternoon milk,” Caroline said. Rose went upstairs and left her stepsisters to their repetitions. Her window looked out on the little walled front garden and the broad street. Tradesmen’s carts went by without hurry, ladies walked out with their dogs, errand-boys loitered in the sun, and presently Caroline and Sophia went down the garden path, Caroline sailing majestically like a full-rigged ship, Sophia with her girlish, tripping gait. They put up their sunshades, and sailed out on what was, in effect, a foraging expedition. They were going to collect the news.