N A CONSPICUOUS PLACE]

Diane felt the color receding from her face as suddenly as it had come,
while she gained time in which to collect her astonished wits by putting
the silver dagger down beside the telegram with needless exactitude
before attempting a response.

"Do you remember what Sir Walter Scott said, in the days when the
authorship of _Waverley_ was still a secret, to the indiscreet people
who asked him if he had written it? 'No,' he answered; 'but if I had I
should give you the same reply.'"

"That means, I suppose, that you don't want to tell me?"

"It might be taken to imply something of the sort."

"As a matter of fact, I suppose it would be more delicate on my part not
to ask you."

"I won't attempt to contradict you there."

"I shouldn't do it if I didn't wish you _were_ going to marry him. I've
wanted it a long time; but I want it more than ever now."

"Why more than ever now?"

"Because I expect to be married before very long myself."

"May I venture to inquire to which of the many--"

"To none of the many. There's never, really, been more than one."

"And his name--?"

"Is Carli Wappinger."

"Oh, Dorothea!"

"That's just it. That's why I want you to marry father. I want to put a
stop to the 'Oh, Dorotheas!' and you're the only person in the world who
can help me do it."

"How?"

"I don't have to tell you that. It's one of the reasons why I rely on
you so thoroughly that you always know exactly what to do without having
to receive suggestions. I put myself in your hands entirely."

"You mean that you're going to marry a man to whom your father will be
bitterly opposed, and you expect me to win his joyful benediction."

"That's about it," Dorothea sighed, from the depth of her cushions.

"Of course, I must be grateful to you, dear, for this display of
confidence; but you won't be surprised if I find it rather
overwhelming."

"I shall be very much surprised, indeed. I've never seen you find
anything overwhelming yet; and you've been put in some difficult
situations. You only have to _live_ things in order to make other people
take them for granted. You've never done anything to specially please
father, and yet he listens to you as if you were an oracle. It's the
same way with me. If any one had told me two years ago that I should
ever come to praying for a stepmother I should have thought them crazy;
and yet I have come to it, just because it's you."

After that it was not u