_:
and though we were fond of each other, he proceeded in one direction to
repair his fortunes, and I--on another to--_enfin_ to do as best I
could. But no such accident shall happen in your case. It is not only
your interest I have in hand; it is my own. I want a home for my
declining years."

She said this with a smile at the absurdity of the expression in her
case, but Bice at sixteen naturally took the words _au pied de la
lettre_, and did not see any absurdity in them. To her forty was very
much the same as seventy. She nodded her head very seriously in answer
to this, and turning round to the glass surveyed herself once more, but
not with that complacency which is supposed to be excited in the
feminine bosom by the spectacle. She was far too serious for vanity--the
gaze she cast upon her own youthful countenance was severely critical,
and she ended by a shrug of her shoulders, as she turned away. "The only
thing is," she said, "that perhaps the young brother is right, and at
present I am not even pretty at all."

The Contessa had a great deal to think of during this somewhat dull
interval. The days flowed on so regular, and with so little in them,
that it was scarcely possible to take note of the time at all. Lucy was
always scrupulously polite and sometimes had little movements of anxious
civility, as if to make up for impulses that were less kind. And Sir
Tom, though he enjoyed the evenings as much as ever, and felt this
manner of passing the heavy hours to retain a great attraction, was at
other times a little constrained, and made furtive attempts to find out
what the Contessa's intentions were for the future, which betrayed to a
woman who had always her wits about her, a certain strain of the old
bonds, and uneasiness in the indefinite length of her visit. She had
many reasons, however, for determining to ignore this uneasiness, and to
move on upon the steady tenor of her way as if unconscious of any reason
for change, opposing a smiling insensibility to all suggestions as to
the approaching removal of the household to London. It seemed to the
Contessa that the association of her _debutante_ with so innocent and
wealthy a person as Lady Randolph would do away with all the prejudices
which her own dubious antecedents might have provoked; while the very
dubiousness of those antecedents had procured her friends in high
quarters and acquaintances everywhere, so that both God and Mammon were,
so to speak, enlist