"As you know," he added. "Is she talking yet?"

"A word or two," Grace had said, with no more warmth in her tone
than was in his.

"Very well. Get her a French governess. She ought to speak French
before she does English. It is one of the accomplishments of a lady.
Get a good woman, and for heaven's sake arrange to serve her
breakfast in her room. I don't want to have to be pleasant to any
chattering French woman at eight in the morning."

"No, you wouldn't," Grace had said.

Anthony had stamped out, but in the hall he smiled grimly. He did
not like Howard's wife, but she was not afraid of him. He respected
her for that. He took good care to see that the Frenchwoman was
found, and at dinner, the only meal he took with the family, he
would now and then send for the governess and Lily to come in for
dessert. That, of course, was later on, when the child was nearly
ten. Then would follow a three-cornered conversation in rapid French,
Howard and Anthony and Lily, with Mademoiselle joining in timidly,
and with Grace, at the side of the table, pretending to eat and
feeling cut off, in a middle-class world of her own, at the side of
the table. Anthony Cardew had retained the head of his table, and
he had never asked her to take his dead wife's place.

After a time Grace realized the consummate cruelty of those hours,
the fact that Lily was sent for, not only because the old man cared
to see her, but to make Grace feel the outsider that she was. She
made desperate efforts to conquer the hated language, but her