"But not handsome," insisted Mademoiselle, "and lame! Also, I know
the child. She is not in love. When that comes to her we shall
know it."

Grace lay back, relieved, but not entirely comforted.

"She is changed, isn't she, Mademoiselle?"

Mademoiselle shrugged her shoulders.

"A phase," she said. She had got the word from old Anthony, who
regarded any mental attitude that did not conform with his own as
a condition that would pass. "A phase, only. Now that she is back
among familiar things, she will become again a daughter of the house."

"Then you think this talk about marrying beneath her--"

"She 'as had liberty," said Mademoiselle, who sometimes lost an
aspirate. "It is like wine to the young. It intoxicates. But it,
too, passes. In my country--"

But Grace had, for a number of years, heard a great deal of
Mademoiselle's country. She settled herself on her pillows.

"Call Castle, please," she said. "And--do warn her not to voice
those ideas of hers to her grandfather. In a country pharmacy, you
say?"

"And lame, and not fond of women," corroborated Mademoiselle. "Ca