Alone with her daughter, Lady Selina, so to speak, uncorked herself. Suppressed feeling bubbled forth in sparkling ebullition. Cicely secretly felt rather flattered. As a rule, her mother withheld confidence concerned with money. Cicely, for example, had no idea of what the family income might be. It seemed to be adequate without pinching. She had been promised a season in London; she was given plenty of frocks; her hunter had cost a hundred and fifty pounds; Brian never complained of his allowance. But, unlike her mother, Cicely had learnt at school elementary business principles. She knew girls of her own age who paid cash for their clothes, and passed anxious hours over the problems of adjusting means and ends. She had discovered that it was bad business to buy cheap shoes and underclothing. And debt was a synonym for misery and humiliation.

Accordingly, she agreed with her mother that Mr. Grimshaw’s price for a clean bill of health was preposterous.

“I like the young man, my dear; I am glad to entertain him but not his ideas. It’s so easy to be lavish with other people’s money. Thousands of pounds——!”

She repeated this intermittently, as if repetition might exorcise an unholy suggestion.

“What does Mr. Grimshaw want to do?” asked the girl.

“Heaven knows! A system of drainage, waterworks, the rebuilding of cottages.”

“What Lord Wilverley has done.”

“A very rich man, child. And the best of good fellows—a very sincere friend of yours, by the way.”

“Is he?”

Then meeting the maternal eye, the girl blushed a little, much to Lady Selina’s satisfaction. Wisely she abandoned further soundings. Arthur Wilverley could be trusted to do his own courting. So her thought sped back to Grimshaw. Already she had adopted a policy. Grimshaw had to be reckoned with. To treat him coldly, to keep him at a distance, simply meant a disturbance of the peace. If she were really “nice” to him, he would be disarmed. In small things he should have a free hand. Ultimately he would work with her, along her lines, without friction. So she said lightly:

“I must ask Mr. Grimshaw to dinner. I wonder whether he belongs to the Grimthorpe Grimshaws.”

“Does it matter?”

Lady Selina smiled tolerantly. This was one of the less happy consequences of sending a girl to school. She said superbly:

“A Chandos ought to be able to answer that question.”

Cicely remained silent. Her great friend at school had been Arabella Tiddle, the daughter of the millionaire pill-manufacturer. Lady Tiddle—so Lady Selina had been credibly informed—once worked in a shoe factory. Sometimes Lady Selina wondered what it felt like to be a Tiddle. She shied at the name, as Cicely was well aware. Nevertheless, Arabella had been invited to the Manor, where she comported herself triumphantly. A small string of beautiful pearls was graciously approved by Arabella’s hostess; whereupon the girl said ingenuously: “So very appropriate, aren’t they?” Lady Selina, not sure of this, asked pleasantly: “Why, my dear?” Arabella replied with a laugh: “They are just like Daddy’s pills. Of course you know that he advertises them as ‘Tiddle’s Pearls.’” Lady Selina didn’t know this, but she smiled amiably, and Arabella continued: “Mummy has ropes of them. Tiddle’s Priceless Pearls! Funny, isn’t it?” Lady Selina smiled again; a different adjective occurred to her.

Cicely’s silence slightly exasperated her. Confidence ought to beget confidence. Now that she was beginning to treat her daughter as “grown up,” surely she might expect more response. Had Cicely learnt to hold her tongue at school? The right selection of a school had worried Lady Selina not a little. Dr. Pawley shared her anxieties. At thirteen Cicely became rather anÆmic, almost scraggy! Bracing air was prescribed; reinvigorating games; the stimulus of competition in work and play. After studying innumerable prospectuses, Lady Selina chose a big school on the South Coast, a sort of Eton in petticoats. And there the child had grown into a strong young woman. But, undoubtedly, she had lost something vaguely described by Lady Selina as “bloom.” Attrition with girls without grandfathers had rubbed it off. Miss Tiddle had no “bloom” except upon her cheeks. The political tendencies of the school were lamentably democratic.

She continued blandly, ignoring Cicely’s silence, taking for granted that it meant nothing:

“I daresay Mr. Grimshaw plays tennis.”

“Fancy your not knowing——!”

“What?”

“He’s top hole at games. After leaving Winchester he played cricket for his county. I’d bet sixpence that he plays tennis better than anyone about here. He’s an athlete all over. He won’t play pat-ball with me. No such luck!”

Lady Selina, after a penetrating glance at her daughter’s face, thought to herself: “I shall see that he doesn’t.” Then she kissed Cicely and laughed.

“We must be decently civil, my dear. That’s all.”

With that she went her way, not without misgivings. Why was it easier for her to understand her son rather than her daughter? Brian, she felt sure, would see eye to eye with his mother—a Chandos every inch of him. But Cicely baffled her. Had she made a hero of this young surgeon? Did she reckon breeding of no account? Still, her blush at mention of Wilverley’s name was reassuring. Later, at Evensong, during a dull sermon, she beguiled herself happily with a vision of Cicely and Wilverley kneeling on the chancel steps, with the lawn sleeves of a bishop raised above them in solemn benediction. She prayed fervently that it might be so. And Cicely, at the same moment, sitting demurely by her august mother, was wondering what sort of a woman Henry Grimshaw would marry. Did his fancy prefer blondes to brunettes? Was he engaged already? What deft fingers he had. Hardly had she felt the touch of them on her lower eyelid. But she had thrilled. The fact provoked her. She decided finally that he was the nicest young man she had ever met.

Perhaps it was as well for Lady Selina’s admirable peace of mind, not to mention her robust Anglican piety and faith in what was established, that she could not read Cicely as she read her son.