impostor. Rose would do very well there, too. An imitation foreign
Count with a black moustache and no money! She would be magnificent
and tragic. Imagine them at Monte Carlo, keeping it up! She would hate
him, grandly; she would hate herself for being deceived; she would
never lose her dignity. You can't picture Rose with a droop or a tear.
They'd trail about the Continent and she would never come back.'

'But we don't want her to go away at all,' Sophia cried.

'And when she came to the point of being afraid of murdering him, she
would leave him without any fuss and live alone and mysterious
somewhere in the South of France, or Italy, or Spain. Yes, Spain.
There must be real Counts there and she would get her love affair at
last.'

'But she would still be married.'

'Of course!' Caroline, looking roguish, was terrible. 'That is
necessary for a love affair, _ma chere_.'

'I would much rather she married Francis Sales and came to see us
every week. Or any other nice young man in Radstowe. She would never
marry beneath her.'

'On the contrary,' Caroline remarked, 'she's bound to marry beneath
her--not in class, Sophia, not in class, though in Radstowe that's
possible, too. Look at the Battys! But certainly in brains and
manners.'

Sophia, clinging to her own idea, repeated plaintively, 'I would