"I've no doubt she means well," said Henry, "but it would be a good
thing if she could be induced to keep her own personality a little
more in the background, and not to imagine that she is the
necessary mouthpiece of all the progressive thought in the
countryside. I fancy Canon Besomley must have had her in his mind
when he said that some people came into the world to shake empires
and others to move amendments."

Francesca laughed with genuine amusement.

"I suppose she is really wonderfully well up in all the subjects
she talks about," was her provocative comment.

Henry grew possibly conscious of the fact that he was being drawn
out on the subject of Eliza Barnet, and he presently turned on to a
more personal topic.

"From the general air of tranquillity about the house I presume
Comus has gone back to Thaleby," he observed.

"Yes," said Francesca, "he went back yesterday. Of course, I'm
very fond of him, but I bear the separation well. When he's here
it's rather like having a live volcano in the house, a volcano that
in its quietest moments asks incessant questions and uses strong
scent."

"It is only a temporary respite," said Henry; "in a year or two he
will be leaving school, and then what?"