And your Italian is something wonderful.
I have not opened my dictionary since we have been reading together. And
beyond all that, I have a very particular reason for wishing you to be here
next month."
"Why next month, Lady Laura?"
"I am not going to tell you that."
"But you quite mystify me."
"I mean to mystify you. No, it's not the least use asking questions, Clary;
but mind, you must not tease me any more about running away: that is
understood."
In all this time Clarissa had not found herself any nearer to that desired
result of getting on well with Geraldine Challoner. That, lady seemed quite
as far away from her after a month's acquaintance as she had seemed at the
very first. It was not that Lady Geraldine was uncivil. She was polite,
after her manner, to Clarissa, but never cordial; and yet she could not
fail to see that George Fairfax admired and liked Miss Lovel, and she might
have been supposed to wish to think well of any one he liked.
Was she jealous of Clarissa? Well, no, it scarcely seemed possible to
associate the fever of jealousy with that serene temperament. She had an
air of complete security in all her intercourse with George Fairfax, which
was hardly compatible with doubt or the faintest shadow of suspicion.
If ever she did speak of Miss Lovel to her lover, or to any one else, she
talked of her as a pretty country girl, and seemed to consider her as far
removed, by reason of her youth and obscure position, from herself, as if
they had been inhabitants of two separate worlds.
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