Verity's remark was, perhaps, a little callous — both towards Grace and towards their late father, though luckily Mama wasn't around to hear (or would their mother have agreed with her? Ford wasn't sure; he had found it harder and harder to anticipate what their mother would say or do since she had become a widow). In any case, he didn't want to poke the bear this afternoon particularly, while Clementine was home visiting and tomorrow was such an important day for them all. Why shouldn't Verity be in a good mood? That was the whole point of the mourning period, to consolidate all those feelings of grief into a specific time so that when it was over, one could continue on with life without feeling guilty about it. Verity certainly didn't seem to be feeling guilty.

"It'll make a difference," he told Grace confidently, with a small smirk in Verity's direction. Grace was right that she would still find herself quite restricted in her movements, but they could still go out to the same sorts of places they had been allowed to visit while in mourning. Art exhibits, sport events, turns around the Park, the library, the Museum. There were all sorts of places to be seen — and she would be seen, once she was out of black and no longer blending into the shadows. She was pretty enough that someone would take notice even if she wasn't off at parties dancing the night away.

He might have offered her more in the way of a comforting explanation, but the realization of what he was considering — strange men looking desirously at his sister — made him immediately uncomfortable, and the idea of actually voicing any of those thoughts was too much to handle. He coughed and went to get himself a drink from the sideboard.