he matter with Fanny. The task of curbing the
girl's impatience, day after day, had fallen to Mrs. Colwood.

Diana was still standing in a reverie before the "Annunciation" when the
drawing-room door opened. As she looked round her, she drew herself
sharply together with the movement of a sudden and instinctive
antipathy.

"That's all right," said Fanny Merton, surveying the room with
satisfaction, and closing the door behind her. "I thought I'd find
you alone."

Diana remained nervously standing before the picture, awaiting her
cousin, her eyes wider than usual, one hand at her throat.

"Look here," said Fanny, approaching her, "I want to talk to you."

Diana braced herself. "All right." She threw a look at the clock. "Just
give me time to get tidy before lunch."

"Oh, there's an hour--time enough!"

Diana drew forward an arm-chair for Fanny, and settled herself into the
corner of a sofa. Her dog jumped up beside her, and laid his nose on
her lap.

Fanny held herself straight. Her color under the powder had heightened a
little. The two girls confronted each other, and, vaguely, perhaps, each
felt the strangeness of the situation. Fanny was twenty, Diana
twenty-three. They were of an age when girls are generally under the
guidance or authority of their elders; comparatively little accustomed,
in the normal family, to discuss affairs or take independent decisions.
Yet here they met, alone and untrammelled; as hostess and guest in the
first place; as kinswomen, yet comparative strangers to each other, and
conscious of a secret dislike, each for the other. On the one side, an
exultant and partly cruel consciousness of power; on the other, feelings
of repugnance and revolt, only held in check by the forces of a tender
and scrupulous nature.

Fanny cleared her throat.

"Well, of course, Mrs. Colwood's told me all you've been saying to her.
And I don't say I'm surprised."

Diana opened her large eyes.

"Surprised at what?"

"Surprised--well!--surprised you didn't see your way all at once, and
that kind of thing. I know I'd want to ask a lot of questions--shouldn't
I, just! Why, that's what I expected. But, you see, my time in England's
getting on. I've nothing to say to my people, and they bother my life
out every mail."

"What did you really come to England for?" said Diana, in a low voice.
Her attitude, curled up among the cushions of the sofa, gave her an
almost childish air. Fanny, on the other hand, re