“Well done!” He laughed softly.
“Are you laughing at me?” said Rose, offended.
“Indeed I’m not—or only in the way one is allowed to laugh, between friends. I hope you and I are to be friends?”
“Yes,” Rose said directly. “I’d like to be. I haven’t found anybody, in England, that I wanted to be friends with—except Dr. Lucian and his sister. They’ve been very kind to me. As for that Diana creature, that they all talk of as if she was so wonderful, I think she’s too deadly for words. Quite nice, you know, but dull, and extraordinarily stupid.”
Lord Charlesbury carefully displaced his eyeglass before speaking, polished it with a silk handkerchief, and then replaced it.
“As I am to have the pleasure of your friendship, will you allow me to say something very frankly?”
“Yes,” said Rose, wide-eyed.
“I want you to let me have the honour of being the only person to whom you express yourself so very outspokenly about people whom you don’t like. It would be—well, at least unwise, to give your opinion of Diana Grierson-Amberly in quite those words, to someone who might very possibly resent them. You see, English society is quite a small clan, really, isn’t it? And perhaps especially so in the country. It’s a pity to make enemies, after all.”
“Oh!”
“You forgive me for talking like a prig? I’m so much older than you are, and, if you’ll let me say it, so much interested—and so sorry for you.”