“Only three months. I think we both fell in love at the same minute, and that’s nice, isn’t it? I know I’m going to be happy, but I do hope I shan’t be dull. We’re a big family at home. I’m English,” she added a little anxiously, “but my father settled there.”
“I don’t think you should be dull,” Rose said. “Everybody in Radstowe will call on you, and there are lots of parties. And then there’s hunting.”
“Yes,” said Mrs. Sales. Her eyes left Rose’s face, to return a little wider, a little warier. “Do you hunt too?”
“As often as I can. I only have one horse.”
“And they will be good ones. He likes hunting and horses better than anything else, I suppose.”
“But he mustn’t neglect the farm,” his wife said firmly, and she added slowly, “I don’t know that I need two horses, really. I haven’t ridden much, and there’s a lot to do in the house. I don’t believe in people being out all day.”
“Well, you can’t hunt all the year round, you know.”
Mrs. Sales let out a sigh so faint that most people would have missed it. “It will be beginning soon, won’t it?”
“It feels a long way off in weather like this,” Rose said. “But they are getting into the carriage. I must go.”
Mrs. Sales lingered for an instant. “I do hope we’re going to be friends.” This was more than a statement, it was a request, and Rose shrank from it; but she said lightly, “We shall be meeting often. You will see more of us than you will care for, I’m afraid. The Malletts are rather ubiquitous in Radstowe. It’s fortunate for us, or Caroline would die of boredom, but I don’t know how it appears to other people.”
She was going down the shallow stairs and the voice of Mrs. Sales followed her sadly: “He hasn’t told me anything about any of his friends.”
“In three months? He hasn’t had time, with you to think about!” A laugh, pleased and self-conscious, reached her ears. “No, but it’s rather lonely in this old house. We’re a big family at home—and so lively. There was always something going on. I wished we lived nearer Radstowe.”
“I’m a good deal older than you, you see,” Rose elaborated.
Rose laughed, and Francis, standing at the door, turned at the sound in time to catch the end of Rose’s smile.
“No. Good-bye. I liked it.” Yet, as she settled herself in her place, she was not more than half pleased. She liked her superior age only because it marked a difference between her and the wife of Francis Sales.