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Caroline stared at her. “You astonish me.”

“Not, I think, in any manner you will admire.”

“No.”

Elizabeth clasped her hands before her. “I have apologized to him. Since I had spoken to you, I owed you the correction as well.”

“What did he say?”

“That she was not his daughter.”

“And you believed him?”

“Yes.”

“How fortunate for him.” Caroline gathered the scattered sheets into a neat pile. “I wonder you did not require witnesses.”

Elizabeth felt the answer she might have made. It would have been easy to remind Caroline that certainty and proof were different things, or to ask whether admiration entitled a woman to know every part of a gentleman’s history. She had said something very like it before and used the distinction to excuse an injury.

“I deserved his displeasure,” she said. “He was more generous than that.”

Caroline’s expression changed. The triumph did not vanish, but something less satisfied joined it.

“Did he explain why the child interests him?”

“I am not at liberty to discuss his affairs.”

“So he did explain.”

Elizabeth wished she had chosen another answer. She could not retrieve it by telling an untruth.

“I came to withdraw my own accusation, Caroline. That is all I can do.”

“After making an accusation grave enough to oblige him to account for himself.”

“He was not obliged. I told him so.”

“But he did.”

Elizabeth said nothing.

Caroline rose and carried the music to the pianoforte. She took longer than necessary to set it upon the stand. Elizabeth watched her place one sheet before another, then move the first to the top again.

At last Caroline turned.

“I have known him for years. Charles has depended upon him in matters of far greater consequence than you can imagine, and I have never had reason to doubt his honour. Yet you arrive here, see something you do not understand, and consider yourself entitled to question him.”

“I did not consider myself entitled to his confidence.”

“You appear to have obtained it.”

There it was. Elizabeth could have borne the rebuke more easily if Caroline had merely wished her ashamed. The confidence itself had become a fresh offence, and one Elizabeth could neither apologize for receiving nor use to silence her.

“I shall keep it,” she said.

“How very proper.”

“Yes. In this instance I mean to be.”