"You make me out a perfect wretch," Di moaned piteously, peering over her shoulder to see how the repairs were getting on.
"So you are! A beautiful one, but a wretch. You like them both, Eagle and Major Vandyke. You like Eagle because he's so popular and such a hero as an airman; and you like Major Vandyke because he's awfully good looking and awfully rich and an awful flirt. You were worried to death for fear he wouldn't propose, and I'd have known to-night, from the change in your face, even if you hadn't told me, that he had spoken at last. But Eagle spoke, too, and you sent him away happy. I know that; though the only other thing I do know for certain, is that you think now he's sure to get his aunt's money."
"It's not such a tremendous lot, anyhow," Di gave herself away again. "He won't have more than two or three hundred thousand dollars at the most. If only it were pounds! Every one says Sidney Vandyke has a million. He's one of the few very rich men in the American army."
"But he can't fly, and he can't invent things, and he'll never be the man in any career that Eagle will," I reminded her. "You know this as well as I do. That's why you're waiting. Don't you think you'd better explain your true state of mind to me, if you don't want me to work against you?"
"You're a cat as well as a pig, you little horror!"
"What a museum combination! Don't twitch, or the fringe will go crooked. Is Eagle's rich aunt likely to die?"
"Well, yes, she is," Diana admitted. "She's very old, you know. She's had a third stroke of paralysis. If Eagle could have got leave he would have gone to her, but that was out of the question as things are."
"Did he tell you about her, or was it some one else who gave you the news?"
"It was some one else, of course. Naturally I wanted to make sure, so I—sympathized with him on his aunt's illness. He had only just heard about it, himself. He's always been fond of her, and he said he couldn't have had the heart to come to a dance, if it hadn't been his last night, and the only way to see me before he left for Texas. But he told me that Mrs. Cabot's death would make him comparatively a rich man. Those were the words he used. I don't think he's sure how much he'll get. It was from Kitty I heard what Mrs. Cabot is likely to leave."
"And as 'likely' isn't the same as 'certain,' you're hanging fire till she's dead," I explained Diana to herself.