"Really, Miss Chesney," I began formally.
"Oh yes, Miss Chesney, Miss Chesney--it's all very well!" she repeated
impatiently, snatching up a gorgeous evening cloak which I mutely
volunteered to put on, an offer she as mutely accepted--"I'm only a
girl, and it isn't my fault if I've got a vulgar man for a father who
wants to see me married to an English nobleman before he dies,--that's
_his_ look-out--_I_ don't care about it. English noblemen are a ricketty
lot in _my_ opinion. But I've as good a heart as anyone, and I could
love Sibyl if she'd let me, but she _won't_. She leads the life of an
ice-berg, and doesn't care a rap for anyone. She doesn't care for you,
you know!--I wish she did,--she'd be more human!"
"I'm very sorry for all this,"--I said, smiling into the piquante face
of the really sweet-natured girl, and gently fastening the jewelled
clasp of her cloak at her throat--"But you mustn't mind it so much. You
are a dear little soul Diana,--kind and generous and impulsive and all
the rest of it,--but,--well----English people are very apt to
misunderstand Americans. I can quite enter into your feelings,--still
you know Lady Sibyl is very proud----"
"Proud!" she interrupted--"My! I guess it must feel something splendid
to have an ancestor who was piked through the body on Bosworth field,
and left there for the birds to eat. It seems to give a kind of
stiffness in the back to all the family ever afterwards. Shouldn't
wonder if the descendants of the birds who ate him felt kinder stuck up
about it too!"