the matter?
What happened that you so strongly took up his cause with Molly? You
have not told me yet."

She relinquished the interests of the moment to those of the
sentimental question.

"It seems," she said, lowering her tone, "that they have been secretly
engaged for a year. Nothing that an American girl can do would
surprise me, but you can imagine that I was overwhelmed at his part in
the matter. When Molly joined me in Fontainebleau, De Presle-Vaulx
promptly followed, and I naturally obliged her to tell me everything.
I was dismayed at the lack of _tenue_ he had shown. I had a plain talk
with him. He said that he had first met Molly at some dance or other
in the American colony, I don't know where; that he understood that
American girls disposed of their own lives; that he loved her and
wanted to marry her, and that he was only waiting to gain the consent
of his family before writing to her father. He seemed delighted to
talk with me and perfectly conventional in his feelings. He further
told me that his parents until now knew nothing, that he had not been
able to tear himself away from Molly long enough to go down to the
country where they were and see them. I forced him to write at once;
exacted myself that until he received their answer there should be
nothing between Molly and him but the merest distant acquaintance. I
did not know that he had heard from the Marquise or his father. You
seemed to have suddenly entirely gained his confidence and taken my
place." She looked over at the young couple. "Poor Molly!" she
exclaimed. "He has not, I should say, told her: she looks so happy and
so serene! It's of course only a question of _dot_, otherwise there
could be no possible objection. She is perfectly beautiful, the
sweetest creature in the world; and she is a born Marquise!"

Bulstrode interrupted her impatiently:

"It would be more to the purpose if he were a born bread-winner and she
were a dairy-maid!"

"Jimmy, how vulgar you are!"

"Very--" he was wonderfully sarcastic for him--"money is a very vulgar
thing, my dear friend; it's as vulgar as air and bread and butter. It
is like all other clean, decent vulgarity, it can be abused, but it's
necessary to life."

Mrs. Falconer opened her eyes wide on this new Bulstrode.

"Why, what has happened to you?"

He made a comprehensive gesture: "Oh, I am always supporting a family!"
he said with an amusing attempt at irritability. "I am al