Dorothy came reluctantly, haunted with a forebode of impending griefs. The room was a fashion of torture chamber to Dorothy. Mrs. Hanway-Harley had summoned her to this room for admonition and reproach and punishment since ever she was ten years of age. Wherefore, there was little in her mother's call to engage Dorothy pleasantly; and she hung back, and answered slowly, with soles of lead.
When Dorothy at last came in, Mrs. Hanway-Harley lost no time in skirmishing, but at once opened the main battle.
"My child," said she, with a look that she meant should be ineffably affectionate, and which was not, "Count Storri has been talking of you."
"Yes?" queried Dorothy, with sinking heart, but making a gallant effort at childish innocence.
Mrs. Hanway-Harley lost patience. She observed and resented the childish innocence, rebuking it smartly.
"Rub that baby look out of your face, instantly! You are not a child!"
Dorothy stiffened like a grenadier. She remembered Richard; her mother was right; she was not a child, she was a woman, and so the world should find her. Dorothy's eyes began to gleam dangerously, and if Mrs. Hanway-Harley had owned any gift to read faces, she might have hesitated at this pinch.
"What would you have?" said Dorothy, and her tones were as brittle and as devoid of sentimental softness as Mrs. Hanway-Harley's.
"Marriage."
"Marriage with Storri?"