"Diane," she asked, dropping among the cushions of a divan, "are you going to marry father?"
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."