Mina had wanted to learn so much more and she thought now that, if she could stay at Vent Royal long enough, she might find an answer to hundreds of the questions that had received no reply when she had asked them at school.
“Perhaps you should give me a list of your requirements,” the Marquis was saying, “then we can see what we can do about them. I suppose apart from book learning you would like to have dancing lessons.”
“That is one thing we were taught well at school,” Mina replied, “but I would love to fence, to ride, to practise archery and play tennis.”
Again the Marquis looked surprised.
He had never considered fencing as a woman’s sport and he thought that Mina looked too small and fragile for what he felt was specifically a masculine skill.
Then he thought that with her grac
