ready for his arrival. He might come: if he needed money badly enough
he would come, and in spite of the already considerable depletion of
their capital, Caroline and Sophia lived in hope of hearing his
impatient assault of the door-knocker, the brass head of a lion
holding a heavy ring in his mouth. Rose, too, wished he would come,
but that last interview with the lawyer Batty had been more successful
than anyone but the lawyer himself had wished, and there was no knock,
no letter, no news.

The usual life of parties, calls and concerts continued without any
excitement but that felt by Caroline and Sophia in the getting of new
clothes, the refurbishing of old ones, the hearing of the latest
gossip, the reading of the latest novel. Sophia sometimes apologized
for the paper-backed books lying about the drawing-room by saying that
she and dear Caroline liked to keep up their French, but Caroline
loudly proclaimed her taste for salacious literature. She had a
reputation to keep up and she liked to shock her friends; but
everything was forgiven to Miss Mallett, the more readily, perhaps,
after Sophia's reassuring whisper, 'They are really charming books,
quite beautiful, nothing anybody could disapprove of. Why, there is
hardly an episode to make one shrink, though, of course, the French
are different,' and the Radstowe ladies would nod over their tea and
say, 'Of course, quite different!'

But Caroline, suspecting that murmured explanation, had been known to
call out in her harsh voice, 'It's no good asking Sophia about them.
She simply doesn't understand the best bits! She is _jeune fille_
still, she always will be!' Sophia, blushing a little, would feel
herself richly complimented, and the ladies laughed, Mrs. Batty
uncertainly, having no acquaintance with the French language.