"Oh! my dear, she is just a witch," Lady Randolph said. "It does not matter who it is, she can bring them to her feet if she pleases!" Then she seemed to think she had gone too far, and stopped herself: "I mean when she was young; she is young no longer, and I dare say all that has come to an end."
"It must be sad to grow old when one is like that," said Lucy, with a look of sympathetic regret.
"Oh, you are a great deal too charitable, Lucy!" said the old lady: and then she stopped short, putting a sudden restraint upon herself, as if it were possible that she might have said too much; then after a while she resumed: "As you are in such a heavenly frame of mind, my dear, and disposed to think so well of her, there is just one word of advice I will give you--don't allow yourself to get intimate with this lady. She is quite out of your way. If she liked, she could turn you round her little finger. But it is to be hoped she will not like; and, in any case, you must remember that I have warned you. Don't let her, my dear, make a catspaw of you."
"A catspaw of me!" Lucy was amused by these words--not offended, as so many might have been--perhaps because she felt herself little likely to be so dominated; a fact that the much older and more experienced woman by her side was quite unaware of. "But," she said, "Tom would not have invited her, Aunt Randolph, if he had thought her likely to do that--indeed, how could he have been such great friends with her if she had not been nice as well as pretty? You forget there must always be that in her favour to me."
"Oh, Tom!" cried Lady Randolph with indignation. "My dear Lucy," she added after a pause, with subdued exasperation, "men are the most unaccountable creatures! Knowing him as I do, I should have thought she was the very last person--but how can we tell? I dare say the idea amused him. Tom will do anything that amuses him--or tickles his vanity. I confess it is as you say, very, very difficult to account for it; but he has done it. He wants to show off a little to her, I suppose; or else he---- There is really no telling, Lucy. It is the last thing in the world I should have thought of; and you may be quite sure, my dear," she added with emphasis, "she never would have been invited at all if he had expected me to be here when she came."