Frances became accustomed to the presence of young Ramsay after this. He appeared almost every day, very often in the afternoon, eager for tea, and always disposed to inquire for further renseignements, though he was quite certain that he was not to leave England till autumn at the earliest. She began to regard him as a younger brother, or cousin at the least—a perfectly harmless individual, with whom she could talk when he wanted her with a gentle complacence, without any reference to her own pleasure. As a matter of fact, it did not give her any pleasure to talk to Claude. She was kind to him for his sake; but she had no desire for his presence on her own account. It surprised her that he ever could have been thought of as a possible mate for Constance. Constance was so much cleverer, so much more advanced in every way than herself, that to suppose she could put up with what Frances found so little attractive, was a constant amazement to the girl. She could not but express this on one of the occasions, not so very frequent as she had expected, on which her mother and she were alone together.

“Is it really true,” she said at the end of a long silence, “that there was a question of a—marriage between Constance and Mr Ramsay?”

“It is really quite true,” said her mother with a smile. “And why not? Do you disapprove?”

“It is not that I disapprove—I have no right to disapprove; it is only that it seems so impossible.”

“Why? I see nothing impossible in it. He is of suitable age; he is handsome. You cannot deny that he is handsome, however much you may dislike him, my dear.”

“But I don’t dislike him at all; I like him very much—in a kind of way.”

“You have every appearance of doing so,” said Lady Markham with meaning. “You talk to him more, I think, than to any one else.”

“That is because——”

“Oh, I don’t ask any reason, Frances. If you like his society that is reason enough—the best of reasons. And evidently he likes you. He would, no doubt, be more suitable to you than to Constance.”

“Mamma! I don’t know what you mean.” Frances woke up suddenly from her musing state, and looked at her mother with wide open startled eyes.

“I don’t mean anything. I only ask you to point out wherein his unsuitability lies. Young, handsome, nice, and very rich. What could a girl desire more? You think, perhaps, as you have been so simply brought up, that a heroine like Con should have had a Duke or an Earl at the least. But people think less of the importance of titles as they know Society better. Claude is of an excellent old family—better than many peers. She would have been a very fortunate young woman with such an establishment; but she has taken her own way. I hope you will never be so hot-headed as your sister, Frances. You look much more practical and reasonable. You will not, I think, dart off at a tangent without warning or thought.”

Frances looked her mother doubtfully in the face. Her feelings fluctuated strangely in respect to this central figure in the new world round her. To make acquaintance with your parents for the first time when you have reached the critical age, and are no longer able to accept everything with the matter-of-fact serenity of a child, is a curious experience. Children, indeed, are tremendous critics, at the tribunal of whose judgment we all stand unawares, and have our just place allotted to us, with an equity which happily leads to no practical conclusions, but which no tribunal on earth can equal for clear sight and remorseless decision. Eighteen is not quite so abstract as eight; yet the absence of familiarity, and that love which is instinctive, and happily quite above all decisions of the judgment, makes, in such an extraordinary case as that of Frances, the sudden call upon the critical faculties, the consciousness that accompanies their exercise, and the underlying sense, never absent, that all this is unnatural and wrong, into a complication full of distress and uncertainty. A vague question whether it were possible that such a conflict as that which had ended in Constance’s flight, should ever arise between Lady Markham and herself, passed through the mind of Frances. If it should do so, the expedient which had been open to Constance would be to herself impossible. All pride and delicacy of feeling, all sense of natural justice, would prevent her from adopting that course. The question would have to be worked out between her mother and herself, should it ever occur. Was it possible that it could ever occur? She looked at Lady Markham, who had returned to her usual morning occupation of writing letters, with a questioning gaze. There had been a pause, and Lady Markham had waited for a moment for a reply. Then she had taken up her pen again, and with a smiling nod had returned to her correspondence.

Frances sat and pondered with her face turned towards the writing-table, at which her mother spent so much of her time. The number of letters that were written there every morning filled her with amazement. Waring had written no letters, and received only one now and then, which Frances understood to be about business. She had looked very respectfully at first on the sheaves which were every day taken away, duly stamped, from that well-worn but much decorated writing-table. When it had been suggested to her that she too must have letters to write, she had dutifully compiled her little bulletin for her father, putting aside as quite a different matter the full chronicle of her proceedings, written at a great many reprises, to Mariuccia, which somehow did not seem at all to come under the same description. It had, however, begun to become apparent to Frances, unwillingly, as she made acquaintance with everything about her, that Lady Markham’s correspondence was really by no means of the importance which appeared at the first glance. It seemed to consist generally in the conveyance of little bits of news, of little engagements, of the echoes of what people said and did; and it was replied to by endless shoals of little notes on every variety of tinted, gilt, and perfumed paper, with every kind of monogram, crest, and device, and every new idea in shape and form which the genius of the fashionable stationer could work out. “I have just heard from Lady So-and-so the funniest story,” Lady Markham would say to her son, repeating the anecdote—which on many occasions Frances, listening, did not see the point of. But then both mother and son were cleverer people than she was. “I must write and let Mary St Serle and Louisa Avenel know—it will amuse them so;” and there was at once an addition of two letters to the budget. Frances did not think—all under her breath, as it were, in involuntary unexpressed comment—that the tale was worth a pretty sheet of paper, a pretty envelope—both decorated with Lady Markham’s cipher and coronet—and a penny stamp. But so it was; and this was one of the principal occupations evidently of a great lady’s life. Lady Markham considered it very grave, and “a duty.” She allowed nothing to interfere with her correspondence. “I have my letters to write,” she said, as who should say, “I have my day’s work to do.” By degrees Frances lost her respect for this day’s work, and would watch the manufactory of one note after another with eyes that were unwillingly cynical, wondering within herself whether it would make any difference to the world if pen and ink were forbidden in that house. Markham, too, spoke of writing his letters as a valid reason for much consumption of time. But then, no doubt, Markham had land agents to write to, and lawyers, and other necessary people. In this, Frances did not do justice to her mother, who also had business letters to write, and did a great deal in stocks, and kept her eyes on the money market. The girl sat and watched her with a sort of fascination as her pen ran lightly over sheet after sheet. Sometimes Lady Markham was full of tenderness and generosity, and had the look of understanding everybody’s feelings. She was never unkind. She never took a bad view of any one, or suggested evil or interested motives, as even Frances perceived, in her limited experience, so many people to do. But, on the other hand, there would come into her face sometimes a look—which seemed to say that she might be inexorable, if once she had made up her mind: a look before which it seemed to Frances that flight like that of Constance would be the easiest way. Frances was not sufficiently instructed in human nature to know that anomalies of this kind are common enough; and that nobody is always and in all matters good, any more than anybody is in all things ill. It troubled her to perceive the junction of these different qualities in her mother; and still more it troubled her to think what, in case of coming to some point of conflict, she should do? How would she get out of it? Would it be only by succumbing wholly, or had she the courage in her to fight it out?

“Little un,” said Markham, coming up to her suddenly, “why do you look at the mother so? Are you measuring yourself against her, to see how things would stand if it came to a fight?”

“Markham!” Frances started with a great blush of guilt. “I did not know you were here. I—never heard you come in.”

“You were so lost in thought. I have been here these five minutes, waiting for an opportunity to put in a word. Don’t you know I’m a thought-reader, like those fellows that find pins? Take my advice, Fan, and never let it come to a fight.”

“I don’t know how to fight,” she said, crimsoning more and more; “and besides, I was not thinking—there is nothing to fight about.”

“Fibs, these last,” he said. “Come out and take a little walk with me,—you are looking pale; and I will tell you a thing or two. Mother, I am going to take her out for a walk; she wants air.”

“Do, dear,” said Lady Markham, turning half round with a smile. “After luncheon, she is going out with me; but in the meantime, you could not do better—get a little of the morning into her face, while I finish my letters.” She turned again with a soft smile on her face to send off that piece of information to Louisa Avenel and Mary St Serle, closing an envelope as she spoke, writing the address with such a preoccupied yet amiable air—a woman who, but for having so much to do, would have had no thought or ambition beyond her home. Markham waited till Frances appeared in the trim little walking-dress which the mother had paid her the high compliment of making no change in. They turned their faces as usual towards the Park, where already, though Easter was very near, there was a flutter of fine company in preparation for the more serious glories of the Row, after the season had fairly set in.

“Little Fan, you mustn’t fight,” were the first words that Markham said.

She felt her heart begin to beat loud. “Markham! there is nothing to fight about—oh, nothing. What put fighting in your head?”

“Never mind. It is my duty to instruct your youth; and I think I see troubles brewing. Don’t be so kind to that little beggar Claude. He is a selfish little beggar, though he looks so smooth; and since Constance won’t have him, he will soon begin to think he may as well have you.”

“Markham!” Frances felt herself choking with horror and shame.

“You have got my name quite pat, my dear; but that is neither here nor there. Markham has nothing to do with it, except to put you on your guard. Don’t you know, you little innocent, what is the first duty of a mother? Then I can tell you: to marry her daughters well; brilliantly, if possible, but at all events well—or anyhow to marry them; or else she is a failure, and all the birds of her set come round her and peck her to death.”

“I often don’t understand your jokes,” said Frances, with a little dignity, “and I suppose this is a joke.”

“And you think it is a joke in doubtful taste? So should I, if I meant it that way, but I don’t. Listen, Fan; I am much of that opinion myself.”

“That a mother—that a lady——? You are always saying horrible things.”

“It is true, though—if it is best that a girl should marry—mind you, I only say if—then it is her mother’s duty. You can’t look out for yourself—at least I am very glad you are not of the kind that do, my little Fan.”

“Markham,” said Frances, with a dignity which seemed to raise her small person a foot at least, “I have never heard such things talked about; and I don’t wish to hear anything more, please. In books,” she added, after a moment’s interval, “it is the gentlemen——”

“Who look out? But that is all changed, my dear. Fellows fall in love—which is quite different—and generally fall in love with the wrong person; but you see I was not supposing that you were likely to do anything so wild as that.”

“I hope not,” cried Frances hurriedly. “However,” she added, after another pause, colouring deeply, but yet looking at him with a certain courageous air, “if there was any question about being—married, which of course there is not—I never heard that there was any other way.”

“Brava, Fan! Come, now, here is the little thing’s own opinion, which is worth a great deal. It would not matter, then, who the man was, so long as that happened, eh? Let us know the premises on either side.”

“You are a great deal older than I am, Markham,” said Frances.

“Granted, my dear—a great deal. And what then? I should be wiser, you mean to say? But so I am, Fan.”

“It was not that I meant. I mean, it is you who ought—to marry. You are a man. You are the eldest, the chief one of your family. I have always read in books——”

Markham put up his hand as a shield. He stopped to laugh, repeating over and over again that one note of mirth with which it was his wont to express his feelings. “Brava, Fan!” he repeated when he could speak. “You are a little Trojan. This is something like carrying the war into the enemy’s country.” He was so much tickled by the assault, that the water stood in his eyes. “What a good thing we are not in the Row, where I should have been delivered over to the talk of the town. Frances, my little dear, you are the funniest of little philosophers.”

“Where is the fun?” said Frances gravely. “And I am not a philosopher, Markham; I am only—your sister.”

At this the little man became serious all at once, and took her hand and drew it within his arm. They were walking up Constitution Hill, where there are not many spectators. “Yes, my dear,” he said, “and as nice a little sister as a man could desire;” and walked on, holding her arm close to him with an expressive clasp which spoke more than words. The touch of nature and the little suggestive proffer of affection and kindred which was in the girl’s words, touched his heart. He said nothing till they were about emerging upon the noise and clamour of the world at the great thoroughfare which they had to cross. Then “After all,” he said, “yours is a very natural proposition, Fan. It is I who ought to marry. Many people would say it is my duty; and perhaps I might have been of that opinion once. But I’ve a great deal on my conscience, dear. You think I’m rather a good little man, don’t you? fond of ladies’ society, and of my mother and little sister, which is such a good feature, everybody says? Well, but that’s a mistake, my dear. I don’t know that I am at all a fit person to be walking about London streets and into the Park with an innocent little creature, such as you are, under my arm.”

“Markham!” she cried, with a tone which was half astonished, half indignant, and her arm thrilled within his—not, perhaps, with any intention of withdrawing itself; but that was what he thought.

“Wait,” he said, “till I have got you safely across the Corner—there is always a crowd—and then, if you are frightened, and prefer another chaperon, we’ll find one, you may be sure, before we have gone a dozen steps. Come now; there is a little lull. Be plucky, and keep your head, Fan.”

“I want no other chaperon, Markham; I like you.”

“Do you, my dear? Well, you can’t think what a pleasure that is to me, Fan. You wouldn’t, probably, if you knew me better. However, you must stick to that opinion as long as you can. Who, do you think, would marry me if I were to try? An ugly little fellow, not very well off, with several very bad tendencies, and—a mother.”

“A mother, Markham!”

“Yes, my dear; to whom he is devoted—who must always be the first to him. That’s a beautiful sentiment, don’t you think? But wives have a way of not liking it. I could not force her to call herself the Dowager, could I, Fan? She is a pretty woman yet. She is really younger than I am. She would not like it.”

“I think you are only making fun of me, Markham. I don’t know what you mean. What could mamma have to do with it? If she so much wanted Constance to marry, surely she must want you still more, for you are so much older; and then——”

“There is no want of arguments,” he said with a laugh, shaking his head. “Conviction is what is wanted. There might have been times when I should have much relished your advice; but nobody would have had me, fortunately. No; I must not give up the mother, my dear. Don’t you know I was the cause of all the mischief—at least of a great part of the mischief—when your father went away? And now, I must make a mess of it again, and put folly into Con’s head. The mother is an angel, Fan, or she would not trust you with me.”

It flashed across Frances’ memory that Constance had warned her not to let herself fall into Markham’s hands; but this only bewildered the girl in the softening of her heart to him, and in the general bewilderment into which she was thus thrown back. “I do not believe you can be bad,” she said earnestly; “you must be doing yourself injustice.”

By this time they were in the Row in all the brightness of the crowd, which, if less great than at a later period, was more friendly. Markham had begun to pull off his hat to every third lady he met, to put out his hand right and left, to distribute nods and greetings. “We’ll resume the subject some time or other,” he said with a smile aside to Frances, disengaging her arm from his. The girl felt as if she had suddenly lost her anchorage, and was thrown adrift upon this sea of strange faces; and thrown at the same time back into a moral chaos, full of new difficulties and wonders, out of which she could not see her way.