"What should have disturbed you about that?" asked the girl quietly.
"Disturbed me! That you should have come off here alone and fallen in love with nobody knows who?"
"Oh, a good many people are learning who. That is really the chief trouble with him: I mean from a girl's standpoint. He is rapidly becoming one of the stars of the musical world."
"And why is that a drawback?" Mrs. Wilbur began to feel somewhat bewildered by her daughter's attitude.
Diana's color was rather high, but she turned toward her mother with entire calm. "I am not going to marry a man whom other women besiege. My husband will be rather short. I think he will stoop and be nearsighted and wear spectacles. He will incline to baldness, but he will be very charming—to me, and he will be mine." The smile that accompanied this declaration was so winning that Mrs. Wilbur was startled.
"Diana, have you met any such person?" she returned. "I don't like the sound of him at all!"
"Not yet," admitted Diana. "But I keep him in mind. He fights off other types."
"Supposing," said Mrs. Wilbur sharply, "some very desirable man, as attractive as Mr. Barrison, for instance, were to say he wouldn't marry you, because you are too pretty—other men would look at you."
"You do think he is attractive, do you, Mamma?"
"Why—certainly," returned Mrs. Wilbur, not quite sure even yet that the admission was safe.