“Little un,” said Markham, coming up to her suddenly, “why do you look at the mother so? Are you measuring yourself against her, to see how things would stand if it came to a fight?”
“Markham!” Frances started with a great blush of guilt. “I did not know you were here. I--never heard you come in.”
“You were so lost in thought. I have been here these five minutes, waiting for an opportunity to put in a word. Don’t you know I’m a thought-reader, like those fellows that find pins? Take my advice, Fan, and never let it come to a fight.”
“I don’t know how to fight,” she said, crimsoning more and more; “and besides, I was not thinking--there is nothing to fight about.”
“Fibs, these last,” he said. “Come out and take a little walk with me,--you are looking pale; and I will tell you a thing or two. Mother, I am going to take her out for a walk; she wants air.”
“Do, dear,” said Lady Markham, turning half round with a smile. “After luncheon, she is going out with me; but in the meantime, you could not do better--get a little of the morning into her face, while I finish my letters.” She turned again with a soft smile on her face to send off that piece of information to Louisa Avenel and Mary St Serle, closing an envelope as she spoke, writing the address with such a preoccupied yet amiable air--a woman who, but for having so much to do, would have had no thought or ambition beyond her home. Markham waited till Frances appeared in the trim little walking-dress which the mother had paid her the high compliment of making no change in. They turned their faces as usual towards the Park, where already, though Easter was very near, there was a flutter of fine company in preparation for the more serious glories of the Row, after the season had fairly set in.
“Little Fan, you mustn’t fight,” were the first words that Markham said.
She felt her heart begin to beat loud. “Markham! there is nothing to fight about--oh, nothing. What put fighting in your head?”
“Never mind. It is my duty to instruct your youth; and I think I see troubles brewing. Don’t be so kind to that little beggar Claude. He is a selfish little beggar, though he looks so smooth; and since Constance won’t have him, he will soon begin to think he may as well have you.”