Up to now, when I had occasion to pronounce her name, I had called her Lady Dundrannan, and she had not protested, although she continued to use my Christian name, as she always had since Waldo, Arsenio, and Lucinda set the example. But on this day, when her title happened to fall from my lips, she turned to me with an amused smile:
“Don’t you think you might call me Nina? You used to. And, really, mayn’t I almost be considered one of the family now?”
“I don’t care about calling you Nina just because I used to, or just because you’re almost one of the family, Lady Dundrannan——”
“There you go again!” she protested.
“Well, I rather admire the name. It sounds wild, feudal, Caledonian. But I’ll call you Nina if you like me well enough.”
“I’ve always liked you quite well, though I don’t think you used to like me much.”
“Let bygones be bygones, Nina!”
“Well, they are, aren’t they?” she said, with quite undisguised meaning—and undisguised triumph too. I was stupid not to suspect the cause. “But I believe you’re sorry for it!”
“I was sorry for it, of course, at the time it happened. We were all of us—well, much more than sorry. Stunned! Aghast!”
“You do use big words over that girl,” remarked Lady Dundrannan.