CHAPTER IX A WORKING PLAN
Mrs. Lowell knocked for admittance at Diana's door that evening, and entering found the girl sitting at the little desk she had added to Miss Burridge's furnishings, surrounded by books and papers.
"Is it an inopportune time?" asked the caller, hesitating.
Diana rose smiling. "That can never be for you," she replied.
"Thank you, dear child. I am so full, I long to talk to you. You may have a helpful suggestion."
"I shall be pleased to act as your confidante. Sit here, Mrs. Lowell. I was just writing my mother how fortunate I am in the fact that you are here. I encounter a good deal of difficulty in persuading my mother that I am not in a desert place and am not doing penance. I am very desirous of restraining her from coming to see for herself. I should be aghast at the prospect of taking care of her and her maid here. Yet, when I pile up superlatives, she decides that I have fallen in love with an Indian and is increasingly disturbed."
The girl looked very pretty in the peach-colored negligee she was wearing, its precious laces falling over Miss Burridge's cheap chairs and matting, and her thick bright-brown hair in disorder.
"Oh, tell her he isn't an Indian; tell her he is a Viking."