“Then I fancy it must be because she is not quite sincere.  I do not like saying anything so unkind.  You must not let it prejudice you against her; but she gives me always the impression of a person who leads two lives—­one that everybody sees and one that nobody understands save herself.”

“How old should you imagine her to be?” I asked; and again my sister looked uneasily at me.

“We have been in the habit of considering her a young girl,” she replied, “but do you know, Edgar, I believe she is more than thirty?”

“It is impossible!” I cried.  “Why, Clare, she does not look a day more than eighteen.”

“She is what the French people call well preserved.  She will look no older for the next ten years.  She has a girl’s figure and a girl’s face, but a woman’s heart, Edgar, I am sure of it.”

“She is thirty, you say, and has been here for five years; that would make her a woman of twenty-five before she left France.  A French woman of twenty-five has lived her life.”

“That is just what I mean,” she replied.  “Rely upon it, for all her girlish face and girlish ways, Coralie d’Aubergne has lived hers.”

“Clare,” I asked, half shyly, “how do you like Miss Thesiger?”

A look bright as a sunbeam came over my sister’s face.

“Ah! hers is a beautiful nature—­sweet, frank, candid, transparent—­no two lives there, Edgar.  Her face is as pure as a lily, and her soul is the same.  No need to turn from me, dear; I read your secret when she came in.  If you give me such a sister as that I shall be grateful to you.”

“Then you think there might be some chance for me if I asked her to become my wife?”

“Assuredly.  Why not?”

She said no more, for at that moment Coralie returned; she had been in the garden gathering some flowers for Clare.  The brightest bloom was on her face; the brightest light was in her eye.  Looking at her, it was impossible to believe that she was anything but a light-hearted happy girl.

She glanced round the room.

“Your visitors are gone,” she said.  “I felt sure they were staying for dinner.”

“Coralie,” I asked, “Lady Thesiger tells me she has been here a good deal, yet you do not seem to be on very intimate terms with her?”

“No,” she said, with that frank smile that was lovely enough to charm any one.  “I neither like nor admire Lady Thesiger.”

Clare uttered a little cry of astonishment.

“Why not?” I asked.

“I should not like to prejudice you against them, Sir Edgar; but as you ask me, I will tell you.  The Thesigers have but one object.”

“What is it?” I inquired for she had paused abruptly, and seemed to be entirely engrossed in her flowers.

“The one aim they have had in view for several years past is to see Agatha mistress of Crown Anstey.  She was educated solely and entirely for that purpose.”