"Non far niente! I shall tell you just the same," declared Miss Stellenthorpe with unabated spirit. "Pour moi il n'y a que la vérité. The day will yet come when you will remember my frankness with gratitude and admiration. But even should that day not come, my Dickenson, it matters little. The time has come for me to speak, and I shall speak. I have sat here in silence," said Aunt Clo, not altogether truthfully, "and I have been filled with amazement that my niece should not, long ago, have said what I am saying now. Instead, with a supineness for which, candidly, I blame her, she has allowed herself to be overwhelmed. Overwhelmed, you ask me, by what? By a ceaseless torrent of meaningless, ill-chosen, unmelodious words, my Dickenson, strung together without rhyme or reason. You have but one topic—the supremely uninteresting one of yourself. You are reminded of yourself à tout bout de champ—worse, you insist upon reminding us of yourself. But we do not want to know about you. You are not interesting. A-t-on jamais vu un toupet pareil! You tell us of your views, your habits, your trivial little experiences, as though they were of cosmic importance. Could futility go further, I ask you? You reply at once: No, undoubtedly not. There is yet hope for you, then."
On this optimistic pronouncement Aunt Clo met at last with the interruption that her niece, fascinated by so much candour, had been unable to offer.
Nicholas Aubray entered.
"Well, well," said he cheerily, "the Female Parliament sitting?"
The trivial pleasantry was received in perfect silence, and Nicholas cast a sudden, shrewd glance round the room.
"What on earth——?"
"Niente!" said Aunt Clo vivaciously. "A few words, amico mio, of counsel to the young—the very young, I may say."
"Is that Lily?" asked her husband, with a rather puzzled smile.
"But no! Our Lily may be young in years, but in wit, in understanding, she is delightfully mature. But the little Dickenson there—sans rancune, hein, my Dickenson?"
Miss Dickenson's heavy face, from red, had become white.