But the good aunt utilized her talk alone with Miss Bleecker to speak openly about Lord Clandonald’s excellences, his wrongs at the hands of Ruby Darien, his desirable domestic traits, the subjects, in fine, rarely neglected when the female proprietor or backer of a man in the marriage market sees her chance. Lady Campstown was so genuinely unselfish in her desire to build up again the shattered fabric of her dear Clan’s life, that another than the pachydermatous Miss Bleecker would have perceived the pathos of the situation, and condoned the openness of the attack. Miss Bleecker, however, was quite on her guard. She did not consider Clandonald anything to jump at in the way of a match for Helen. She was certain of Mr. Carstairs’ disapproval; she knew that he could not be brought to supply cash for the palpably exigent repairs at Beaumanoir, and lastly, and more to the point, she had no idea of relinquishing while she could hold it, her comfortable billet as Miss Carstairs’ chaperon. But she was aware that Lady Campstown, while possessing but a small and meagre establishment in London, had a pretty villa at Cannes, where she was a personage of undoubted influence and wide acquaintance. And as Miss Bleecker’s doctor had advised the air of that favored resort for her relaxed throat, and Helen did not care where they went, Cannes was the secret object of the chaperon’s intended movement southward at the season’s height.
Therefore, the conversation, while the two elders strolled or sat under immemorial yews, and enjoyed grapes and peaches plucked in an enchanting old walled garden, waxed upon one side, more gracious and evasive, on the other, more perplexed and yet more hopeful. From all she could gather, Lady Campstown was convinced that Helen had been sent by Providence for Clan’s regeneration. The hint given on their return to the house, that the American ladies would be in Cannes after Christmas, to remain there until joined probably by Mr. and Mrs. Carstairs in the well-known yacht, "Sans Peur," seemed to fit into her plans. A further suggestion from the dowager, that Miss Bleecker and her charge would allow Lady Campstown to have the pleasure of introducing them to some people and places in the south, came so quickly, and was accepted so suavely, that the stately little lady was herself a little startled and taken aback by it.