The conversation proceeded in English, smoothly guided by the unperturbed Baronne, who was dispensing excellent coffee and indifferent tea from the small silver equipage in front of her.
The Baronne trusted Mrs. Lloyd-Evans had had a good crossing?
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans had, on the contrary, been extremely ill.
The Baronne and Stéphanie regretted simultaneously.
And Mr. Lloyd-Evans? He was well? They had hoped to have the pleasure of seeing him to-day.
Oh yes, he was very well, but a short visit, on business only—the Baronne would understand.
The Baronne understood perfectly.
Moreover, Mrs. Lloyd-Evans had thought that for a little conversation, such as she would wish to hold with the Baronne, a gentleman would perhaps have been—
The Baronne again said " Perfectly " and waited.
But Mrs. Lloyd-Evans belonged to the numerous class of persons that hold no conversation of any but the most surface description without first insisting upon a formal tête-à-tête.
She looked at Stéphanie.
The Baronne, through her spectacles, deliberately intercepted the look.
"It was perhaps of our little Zella that you desired news?" she inquired blandly.
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans laughed in a manner judiciously designed to convey a mingling of superior amusement and slight annoyance.
"As to news of my niece, I naturally get that direct," she declared lightly; " but I should not be sorry to have a little chat with you, since we are on the subject."
The Baronne raised her eyebrows and looked full at Mrs. Lloyd-Evans with a pleasant but expectant expression.
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans paused, anticipating a question.
The Baronne, quite unembarrassed, remained silent, obviously waiting for the little chat to begin.
Stéphanie, who was as usual bent over her old-fashioned embroidery frame, raised her head in surprise at the sudden silence which had fallen upon the room.
She found the visitor's eyes fixed upon her with a meaning expression that the bewildered Stéphanie was quite at a loss to interpret.
But Mrs. Lloyd-Evans did not lack determination, and, moreover, saw no more objection to requesting her hostess's thirty-five-year-old daughter to leave her mother's drawing-room, than she would have to dismissing her own Muriel to the nursery when her presence became inconvenient.
The astounded Stéphanie heard the guest's low, voluble tones saying to her with amiable firmness:
"I know you will not think me rude if I tell you that I believe we had really better talk things over a deux— just your mother and I, you know. I feel certain you understand."
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans's certainty was hardly shared by the Baronne, who sat in grim amusement watching her daughter's surprised face. As soon, however, as Stéphanie had grasped what was required of her, she rose quite readily and removed herself with her embroidery to the only other sitting-room in the tiny flat, the dining-room, slightly marvelling at the strange difference between Mrs. Lloyd-Evans and dear Louis's wife.
Stéphanie thus disposed of, nothing remained but for Mrs. Lloyd-Evans to fulfill the object of her mission.
She began with gentle persuasiveness:
"I hear from Louis that poor little Zella is to be sent to a convent to be educated—a very unexpected departure."
"Unexpected ?" said the Baronne, delicately implying that Mrs. Lloyd-Evans must have been alone in finding it anything of the sort.
"Certainly unexpected. One could hardly have foreseen that Louis would select a Roman Catholic convent, of all places, for his daughter's education. Of course," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, suddenly remembering her policy of conciliation, "a Roman Catholic convent is very nice for Roman Catholics; but for anyone else"
"You need have no fears on that score, I assure you," said the Baronne kindly. "The nuns are always quite willing to receive non-Catholic children. There will be no difficulty."
"I never supposed there would be," Mrs. Lloyd-Evans returned, with some heat. "Of course they will, no doubt, be delighted to take my niece as a boarder. It is of the child herself that I am thinking. I fear a convent is far from being the place that my poor dear sister would have selected for her."
The Baronne's expression was one of courteous concern.
"Esmée was, naturally, very devoted to her own— to the Church," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, with some stretch of imagination, "and one can't help feeling that, if only she were here to look after her only child, there would be no idea of such places as convents for Zella."
"No doubt, if Zella's mother were still alive, the question of her leaving Villetswood would not have arisen," assented the Baronne quietly.
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans saw her opportunity.
"I do not know how it Ms arisen," she said meaningly, fixing a penetrating eye on the totally unmoved Baronne. "Louis had no thought of such a thing when he left England. Some influence must have been at work to put the idea into his mind."
"Ah!" said the Baronne, shrugging her shoulders, "as you will readily understand, I ask no questions. A stepson is but a stepson, and even of one's nearest relations one has no right to ask intrusive questions. Louis is well of an age to make up his own mind."
"No doubt, but the question is, Has he made it up, or has someone been making it up for him? I can understand that, to a member of the Roman Church, it might even appear a good thing for Zella to be sent to a convent," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans broad-mindedly, " and I am afraid some mistaken influence may have been at work on Louis. I quite see that, from their point of view, the best thing that could happen would be for Zella to be made into a Roman Catholic—as she certainly will be, if she goes into a convent."
"Dear me!" said the Baronne, looking politely shocked, "has her own faith, then, so light a hold upon her? I thought the child had been better grounded."
"So she has," agitatedly retorted Mrs. Lloyd-Evans. "But you forget what a child she is—only fifteen, and very impressionable. She has inherited her father's temperament."
"Her father's temperament has not yet led him to change his religion, although he is forty years old."
"Louis was never sen---t" sharply began Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, and then perforce stopped.
"Convents do not, indeed, admit pupils of the opposite sex," the Baronne mildly informed her.
Mrs. Lloyd-Evans hastily turned to another branch of the subject.
"Why not a good school ?" she demanded plaintively. "Zella has been very badly educated up to the present. She did lessons with my little daughter for a while in the winter, and the governess was quite shocked to see how backward that child is with arithmetic and geography, and, in fact, all that thorough groundwork which is so indispensable. She knows practically nothing, compared to Muriel. Now, the Sisters at the convent may teach plain sewing and perhaps embroidery or illumination very nicely," said Mrs. Lloyd-Evans, whose conceptions of a convent did not appear to extend beyond the Middle Ages, "but what about a modern, up-to-date English education?"
"Ah, happily, there is no need to discuss that, even," said the Baronne airily. "There is a class to which your admirable women workers belong—highly trained governesses and the like—all of whom have great need of the up-to-date education of which you speak, and profit by it fully, to their infinite credit. But when Zella goes into the world to which she naturally belongs, who will require of her a demonstration in algebra, or the latitude and longitude of Peru? Reading and her own intelligence will supply her with that general information which is so agreeable an adjunct to well-bred conversation; and for the rest, the essential is that she should carry herself well, and, needless to add, speak and understand one or two languages