Barton was there, too, but I had not the courage to say
anything about Lord Robert; only that Mr. Carruthers had a friend of his
down who was a great judge of pictures, to see them.
"Oh, a valuer, I suppose. I hope he is not going to sell the Correggios,"
she exclaimed.
"No, I don't think so," I said, leaving the part about the valuer
unanswered.
Mr. Carruthers's being unmarried seemed to worry her most; she went on
about it again before we got to my bedroom door.
"I happened to hear a rumor at Miss Sheriton's" (the wool-shop in
Headington, our town) "this morning," she said, "and so I wrote at once to
you. I felt how terrible it would be for one of my own dear girls to be
left alone with a bachelor like that. I almost wonder you did not stay up
in your own rooms."
I thanked her for her kind thought, and she left me at last.
If she only knew! The unmarried ones who came down the passage to talk to
mademoiselle were not half so saucy as the old fellows with wives
somewhere. Lord Bentworth was married, and he wanted me to kiss him,
whereas Colonel Grimston had no wife, and he never said Bo! to a goose.
And I do wonder what she thought Mr. Carruthers was going to do to me,
that it would have been wise for me to stay up in my rooms. Perhaps she
thinks diplomats, having lived in foreign places, are sort of wild beasts.
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