She stared at Mrs. Wilkins.  She was not usually told this quite so immediately and roundly.  Abundantly as she was used to it—­ impossible not to be after twenty-eight solid years—­it surprised her to be told it with such bluntness, and by a woman.

“It’s very kind of you to think so,” she said.

“Why, you’re very lovely,” said Mrs. Wilkins.  “Quite, quite lovely.”

“I hope,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot pleasantly, “you make the most of it.”

Lady Caroline then stared at Mrs. Arbuthnot.  “Oh yes,” she said.  “I make the most of it.  I’ve been doing that ever since I can remember.”

“Because,” said Mrs. Arbuthnot, smiling and raising a warning forefinger, “it won’t last.”

Then Lady Caroline began to be afraid these two were originals.  If so, she would be bored.  Nothing bored her so much as people who insisted on being original, who came and buttonholed her and kept her waiting while they were being original.  And the one who admired her—­ it would be tiresome if she dogged her about in order to look at her.  What she wanted of this holiday was complete escape from all she had had before, she wanted the rest of complete contrast.  Being admired, being dogged, wasn’t contrast, it was repetition; and as for originals, to find herself shut up with two on the top of a precipitous hill in a medieval castle built for the express purpose of preventing easy goings out and in, would not, she was afraid, be especially restful.  Perhaps she had better be a little less encouraging.  They had seemed such timid creatures, even the dark one—­she couldn’t remember their names—­that day at the club, that she had felt it quite safe to be very friendly.  Here they had come out of their shells; already; indeed, at once.  There was no sign of timidity about either of them here.  If they had got out of their shells so immediately, at the very first contact, unless she checked them they would soon begin to press upon her, and then good-bye to her dream of thirty restful, silent days, lying unmolested in the sun, getting her feathers smooth again, not being spoken to, not waited on, not grabbed at and monopolized, but just recovering from the fatigue, the deep and melancholy fatigue, of the too much.

Besides, there was Mrs. Fisher.  She too must be checked.  Lady Caroline had started two days earlier than had been arranged for two reasons:  first, because she wished to arrive before the others in order to pick out the room or rooms she preferred, and second, because she judged it likely that otherwise she would have to travel with Mrs. Fisher.  She did not want to travel with Mrs. Fisher.  She did not want to arrive with Mrs. Fisher.  She saw no reason whatever why for a single moment she should have to have anything at all to do with Mrs. Fisher.