Knowing all she knew through the gossip of servants, Drusilla felt the necessity of being on her guard.  She accepted Olivia’s information that her father had met with losses as so much news, and gave utterance to sentiments of sympathy and encouragement.  Beyond that she could not go.  She was obliged to cast her condolences in the form of bald generalities, since she could make but a limited use of the name of Rupert Ashley as a source of comfort.  More clearly than any one in their little group she could see what marriage with Olivia in her new conditions—­the horrible, tragic conditions that would arise if Peter could do nothing—­would mean for him.  She weighed her words, therefore, with an exactness such as she had not displayed since her early days among the Sussex Rangers, measuring the little more and the little less as in an apothecary’s balances.

“You see,” Olivia said, trying to sound her friend’s ideas, “from one point of view I scarcely know him.”

“You know him well enough to be in love with him.”  Drusilla felt that that committed her to nothing.

“That doesn’t imply much—­not necessarily, that is.  You can be in love with people and scarcely know them at all.  And it often happens that if you knew them better you wouldn’t be in love with them.”

“And you know him well enough to be sure that he’ll want to do everything right.”

“Oh yes; I’m quite sure of that.  I’m only uncertain that—­everything right—­would satisfy me.”

Drusilla reflected.  “I see what you mean.  And, of course, you want to do—­everything right—­yourself.”

Olivia glanced up obliquely under her lashes.

“I see what you mean, too.”

“You mustn’t see too much.”  Drusilla spoke hastily.  She waited in some anxiety to see just what significance Olivia had taken from her words; but when the latter spoke it was to pass on to another point.

“You see, he didn’t want to marry an American, in the first place.”

“Well, no one forced him into that.  That’s one thing he did with his eyes open, at any rate.”

“His doing it was a sort of—­concession.”

Drusilla looked at her with big, indignant eyes.

“Concession to what, for pity’s sake?”

“Concession to his own heart, I suppose.”  Olivia smiled, faintly.  “You see, all other things being equal, he would have preferred to marry one of his own countrywomen.”

“It’s six of one and half a dozen of the other.  If he’d married one of his own countrywomen, the other things wouldn’t have been equal.  So there you are.”

“But the other things aren’t equal now.  Don’t you see?  They’re changed.”

“You’re not changed.”  Drusilla felt these words to be dangerous.  It was a relief to her that Olivia should contradict them promptly.

“Oh yes, I am.  I’m changed—­in value.  With papa’s troubles there’s a depreciation in everything we are.”