Her face flushed crimson, her lips curled with scorn, her eyes flashed light.
"I look very much like a foundling, do I not? Earle Moray, take your absurd stories elsewhere." She held up one white hand. "That looks like the hand of a foundling, does it not? Shame on you for trying to humiliate me! It is a pure invention. I do not believe one word of it, and I never shall."
"You have only heard the commencement," he replied, coolly. "Remember, I never used the word 'foundling' to you—you used it to yourself. It is not probable that I should do so when I know whose daughter you are."
"Ah! Do you know? May I ask what honorable parentage you have assigned to me? This grows amusing. Remember, before you say another word, that I distinctly refuse to believe you."
"You will change your mind," he said, quietly. "I have not the least doubt that I am here to tell you the simple truth, and to take you back to your father."
The impulse was strong upon her to say that she could not go, but she refrained, thinking it quite as wise and politic to hear first to what she was to return.
"You must not ask me how I know your history," said Earle, "but it suffices that I know it. Let me tell you also, it did not surprise me so very much. I always thought, myself, that you were, as you say, 'of a different kind.'"
He saw the color creep slowly over her face and a new light dawn in her eyes.
"You will, henceforward, occupy a very different position, Doris," he said, gravely; "your place will be henceforth among the nobility."
"Ah! that's better," she said in a low voice.