"And are your friends happy?" asked Miss Craven bluntly.
"They are content."
Miss Craven snorted. "Content!" she said scornfully. "Marriage should bring more than contentment. It's a meagre basis on which to found a life partnership."
A shadow flitted across the girl's face.
"I had a friend who married for love," she said slowly. "She belonged to the old noblesse, and her family wished her to make a great marriage. But she loved an artist and married him in spite of all opposition. For six months she was the happiest girl in France--then she found out that her husband was unfaithful. Does it shock you that I speak of it--we all knew in the convent. She went to Capri soon afterwards, to a villa her father had given her, and one morning she went out to swim--it was a daily habit, she could do anything in the water. But that morning she swam out to sea--and she did not come back." The low voice sank almost to a whisper. Miss Craven looked up incredulously. "Do you mean she deliberately drowned herself?" Gillian made a little gesture of evasion. "She was very unhappy," she said softly. And in the silence that followed her troubled gaze turned almost unconsciously to her guardian. He had risen and was standing with his hands in his pockets staring straight in front of him, rigidly still. His attitude suggested complete detachment from those about him, as if his spirit was ranging far afield leaving the big frame empty, impenetrable as a figure of stone. She was sensitive to his lack of interest. She regretted having expressed opinions that she feared were immature and valueless. A quick sigh escaped her, and Miss Craven, misunderstanding, patted her shoulder gently. "It's a very sad little story, my dear."
"And one that serves to confirm your opinion that a girl does well to accept the husband who is chosen for her, Miss Locke?" asked Peters abruptly, as he glanced at his watch and rose to his feet.
Gillian joined in the general move.
"I think it is--safer," she said, as she had said before, and stooped to rouse the sleeping poodle.