uch dreaminess, Meryl's quiet
dignity had a softening effect upon Diana's too great exuberance of
spirits and occasional boyish lack of refinement, which was more the
result of a boisterous capacity for enjoyment than inbred.

Meryl, as became the dreamer, had been profoundly touched by the event
which had called forth that swift grief; and whereas Diana could not
refrain from bemoaning all she must necessarily lose through the
season of mourning, Meryl thought chiefly of how they could get away
quickly into the country and replace the lost gaieties with quiet
delight.

She had already spoken to her father about her wish to leave town, but
he had been much occupied of late, and not yet had time thoroughly to
discuss the question. And meanwhile she and Diana waited a little
disconsolately to see what the days brought forth. Diana was disposed
for a trip to Switzerland, or Norway, or even Iceland, but she wanted
to go in a party, and not just they two and a chaperon. Meryl was not
enthusiastic and it nettled her a little, so that, on the wide
window-seat, there was a cloud on her face as she drummed idly with
her fingers and watched the traffic go by.

"If you would only say what you _do_ want," she asserted impatiently,
"instead of just mooning about and making no plans whatever."

But the fact was, Meryl could not quite make up her mind what she did
want. In some vague way a kind of upheaval had been taking place in
her heart, and left her high and dry upon the rocks of uncertainty and
dim dissatisfaction. New thoughts, new questions, new desires had
risen in her during that sad month of May, and she felt as one seeking
vainly she knew not what. She looked beyond the trees of the Green
Park to the far skies with wistful eyes, and asked herself deep
questions concerning many things, born of the thoughts that arose in
her mind when she stood amid a people mourning tenderly a dearly loved
sovereign, and beheld how in hearts all over the world he had won love
and admiration, in that, to the best of his endeavour, he had
splendidly fulfilled his high trust.

And a high trust was hers. How could she not know it, when she was
sole heiress to her father's millions; and yet, what was she doing,
or preparing to do, in fulfilment of that trust? That it was no less
so with Diana did not weigh with her. Diana was different. When she
was allowed a free hand with her fortune she would buy yachts and
houses and diamonds, and scat