's a child compared to
you. She's as beautiful as one of those cut-off cherubs in the
prayer-books, and as old-fashioned as an early Victorian sampler. These
blonde Dreams with naturally waving golden hair and rosebud mouths, and
eyes big as half-crowns, _have_ that drawback, as I've discovered since
I came to live in England. In _my_ country we don't grow early Victorian
buds. You know perfectly well that those detestable snobs, the Pollens,
don't think Fane good enough for Shelagh in spite of his money. Money's
the _one_ nice thing they've got themselves, which they can pass on to
Shelagh. Probably they forced the wretched Miss Pollen, who was the male
snob's sister, to marry the old Marquis of Leigh just as they wish to
_compel_ Shelagh to marry some other wreck of his sort--and die young,
as her mother did. The girl's a dear--a perfect _lamb_!--but lambs can't
stand up against lions. They generally lie down inside them. But with
_you_ at the helm, the Pollen lions could be forced----"

"Not if they knew it!" I cut in.

"They wouldn't know it. Did _you_ know that you were being forced to
marry that poor young prince of yours?"

"I wasn't forced. I was persuaded."

"We won't argue the point! Anyhow, the subject doesn't press. The scheme
I have in my head for you to launch Fane on the social sea (the _sea_ in
every sense of the word, as you'll learn by and by) can't come off till
you're out of your deepest mourning. I'll find you a quieter line of
goods to begin on than the Fane-Leigh business if you agree to take up
Brightening. The question is, _do_ you agree?"

"I do," I said more earnestly than I had said "I will" as I stood at
Paolo's side in church. For life hadn't been very earnest then. Now it
was.

"Good!" exclaimed Mrs. Carstairs. "Then that's _that_! The next thing is
to furnish you a charming flat in the same house with us. You must have
a background of your own."

"You forget--I haven't a farthing!" I fiercely reminded her. "But Mr.
Carstairs won't forget! I've made him too much trouble. The best
Brightening won't run to _half_ a Background in Berkeley Square."

"Wait," Mrs. Carstairs calmed me. "I haven't finished the whole
proposition yet. In America, when we run up a sky-scraper, we don't
begin at the bottom, in any old, commonplace way. We stick a few steel
girders into the earth; then we start at the top and work down. That's
what I've been doing with my plan. It's perfect. Only you've got to