Here Mrs. Diggs gave a gleeful trill of laughter that made Claire compare it to her mind as well as her person; it was so clear and sharp. "Oh, you can't imagine," she went on, "how radical Cornelia is in her positively feudal conservatisms. I'm so liberal, don't you know, that I can appreciate her narrowness. I relish it as one does a delicious joke. But it's a very curious sort of bigotry. There's nothing in the least spontaneous about it. I've a conviction that she sweeps her eye more widely over this fine Nineteenth Century than any of the ladies I've been telling you about. She has seen that she can only reign on one kind of a throne, and she sticks there. And I assure you, there isn't the least doubt that she reigns in good earnest.... I'm surprised that Beverley Thurston didn't tell you about her. Beverley has got her measure so exactly. He thinks me dreadful, as I said, but he's fond of me. I'm sure we always amuse each other."
"No," said Claire, shaking her head slowly, "he was very reticent on that subject. Perhaps he thought I might want to know her if he painted her portrait as you have done. That would have been awkward for him, provided his sister had declined my acquaintance. And I dare say she would have declined it, as I was not in her exclusive circle."
Mrs. Diggs put her head a little on one side. She was looking at Claire intently. A smile played like a faint flicker of light on her thin lips, whose two bluish lines always kept the same tinge.
"Why are you so candid with me?" she asked.
"Candid?" repeated Claire.
"Yes. Why do you show me that you would like to know Cornelia Van Horn?"
"Why?" still repeated Claire. "Did I show you that?"
"Not openly—not in so many words, don't you know? But I imagine it."
"You are very quick at imagining," said Claire, with a little playful toss of the head. "Well, if you choose, I should like to know her. I should like to know any one who ranks herself high, like that, and has a recognized claim. I have a fellow-feeling for ambitious people. I'm ambitious myself."
Mrs. Diggs seemed deeply amused. She lifted a forefinger, and shook it at Claire.