ss as you like, to do as
you like, to go into the world, to have a handsome house, to enjoy
life?----"

"But, yes!" said Bice, "is it necessary to ask?" She was still as calm
as if the question they were discussing had been of the very smallest
importance. "But we are not good poor people that will spend the money
_comme il faut_. If we had it we should throw it away. Me also--I would
throw it away. It would be for nothing good; why should it be given to
us? Oh no, Madama. The good old clergyman had many children. He will not
waste the money--which we should. What do you care for money, but to
spend it fast, fast; and I too----"

"You are a child," said the Contessa. "No, perhaps I am not what people
call good, though I am poor enough--but you are a child. If it was given
to you it would be invested; you would have power over the income only.
You could not throw it away, nor could I, which, perhaps, is what you
are thinking of. You are just the person she wants, so far as I can see.
She objects to my plan of putting you out in the world; she says it
would be better if you were to work; but this is the best of all. Let
her provide for you, and then it will not need that you should either
marry or work. This is, beyond all description, the best way. And you
are her friend. Tell me, was it before or after the boy informed you of
this that you advised yourself to become her friend?"

"Contessa!" cried Bice, with a shock of angry feeling which brought the
blood to her face. She was not sensitive in many matters which would
have stung an English girl; but this suggestion, which was so
undeserved, moved her to passion. She turned away with an almost tragic
scorn, and seizing the _tapisserie_, which was part of the Contessa's
_mise en scene_, flung a long strip of the many-coloured embroidery over
her arm, and began to work with a sort of savage energy. The Contessa
watched her movements with a sudden pause in her own excitement. She
stopped short in the eagerness of her own thoughts, and looked with keen
curiosity at the young creature upon whom she had built so many
expectations. She was not an ungenerous or mercenary woman, though she
had many faults, and as she gazed a certain compunction awoke within
her, mingled with amusement. She was sorry for the unworthy suggestion
she had made, but the sight of the girl in her indignation was like a
scene in a play to this woman of the world. Her youthful dignity and
wrath, her si