“He has got more sense now.  He says in the letter that he spent yesterday there.”

“Not exactly.  He says ’we spent a pleasant day looking at the pictures.’  Who is ’we’?”

“Some companion of his, I suppose.  Why?”

“I was just thinking could it be the person who has matched the silk so well.  The same woman, I mean.”

“Oh, Nelly!”

“Oh, Marian!  Do you suppose Marmaduke would spend an afternoon at the Louvre with a man, who could just as well go by himself?  Do men match silks?”

“Of course they do.  Any fly-fisher can do it better than a woman.  Really, Nell, you have an odious imagination.”

“Yes—­when my imagination is started on an odious track.  Nothing will persuade me that Marmaduke cares a straw for Constance.  He does not want to marry her, though he is too great a coward to own it.”

“Why do you say so?  I grant you he is unceremonious and careless.  But he is the same to everybody.”

“Yes:  to everybody we know.  What is the use of straining after an amiable view of things, Marian, when a cynical view is most likely to be the true one.”

“There is no harm in giving people credit for being good.”

“Yes, there is, when people are not good, which is most often the case.  It sets us wrong practically, and holds virtue cheap.  If Marmaduke is a noble and warmhearted man, and Constance a lovable, innocent girl, all I can say is that it is not worth while to be noble or lovable.  If amiability consists in maintaining that black is white, it is a quality anyone may acquire by telling a lie and sticking to it.”

“But I dont maintain that black is white.  Only it seems to me that as regards white, you are color blind.  Where I see white, you see black; and——­hush!  Here is Constance.”

“Yes,” whispered Elinor:  “she comes back quickly enough when it occurs to her that we are talking about her.”

Instead of simply asking why Constance should not behave in this very natural manner if she chose to, Marian was about to defend Constance warmly by denying all motive to her return, when that event took place and stopped the discussion.  Marian and Nelly spent a considerable part of their lives in bandying their likes and dislikes under the impression that they were arguing important points of character and conduct.

They knew that Constance wanted to answer Marmaduke’s letter; so they alleged correspondence of their own, and left her to herself.

Lady Constance went to her brother’s study, where there was a comfortable writing-table.  She began to write without hesitation, and her pen gabbled rapidly until she had covered two sheets of paper, when, instead of taking a fresh sheet, she wrote across the lines already written.  After signing the letter, she read it through, and added two postscripts.  Then she remembered something she had forgotten to say; but there was no more room on her two sheets, and she was reluctant to use a third, which might, in a letter to France, involve extra postage.  Whilst she was hesitating her brother entered.