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It was Lady Farrows, at a card party some months later, who made the mistake of underestimating Mary within Caroline's hearing.
"Your Mrs. Allcott seems a quiet little thing," Lady Farrows said to Caroline, watching Mary across the room, deep in earnest conversation with an elderly clergyman about, of all things, the comparative merits of several published sermons. "Rather dull company, I should think, for a woman of your wit."
Caroline did not raise her voice. She rarely needed to.
"Mrs. Allcott," she said, "has read more theology, natural history, and moral philosophy than most men who claim a university education, and unlike most of them, she has actually retained what she's read well enough to correct a bishop's citation at dinner last spring, which I understand caused him some private embarrassment and a great deal of private respect for her besides. I find her a great deal less dull than most conversation I'm offered at these gatherings, Lady Farrows, present company not entirely excepted."
Lady Farrows, who had not expected quite so precise a rebuttal, did not trouble Caroline with further commentary on Mary's character for the remainder of the evening.
Mary, told of the exchange later that night, went faintly pink with a pleasure she tried, unsuccessfully, to disguise as mere amusement.
"You did not need to defend me. I shouldn't have minded Lady Farrows thinking me dull. I've been thought worse things by better people."
"I did not do it for your benefit," Caroline said, though the lie was apparent and both of them knew it. "I did it because I dislike hearing anyone I've an interest in described inaccurately. It offends my sense of precision."
"Your sense of precision," Mary repeated, delighted despite herself.
"Yes. Precisely that. Nothing more sentimental than a commitment to accurate description." Caroline's expression did not shift, though the fondness underneath it was entirely undisguised to anyone who'd learned to look for it, which Mary, by now, certainly had.
"Of course," Mary said, and did not press the point further, though she reached for Caroline's hand under the table with a small, private smile that said she understood perfectly well.