"I know she did. She thought you had been flirting with Sir Eustace long enough."
Dinah's sky began to clear a little. "Then you don't mind my going to see her?" she said.
"So long as you are not there too often," conceded the Colonel. "The younger brother is a nice little chap. There is no danger of your getting up to mischief with him."
Dinah's face burned afresh at the suggestion. He evidently did not actually know; but he suspected very strongly. Still it was a great relief to know that all intercourse with these wonderful new friends of hers was not to be barred.
"There was some talk of a sleigh-drive this afternoon," she ventured, after a moment. "Mr. Studley is taking his sister and she asked me to go too. May I?"
"You accepted, I suppose?" demanded the Colonel.
"I said I thought I might," Dinah admitted. And then very suddenly she caught a kindly gleam in his eyes, and summoned courage for entreaty. "Do please—please—let me go!" she begged, clasping his arm. "I shan't ever have any fun again when this is over."
"How do you know that?" said the Colonel gruffly. "Yes, you can go—you can go. But behave yourself soberly, there's a good girl. And remember—no running after the other fellow to-night! I won't have it. Is that understood?"
Dinah, too rejoiced over this concession to trouble about future prohibitions, gave cheerful acquiescence to the fiat. Perhaps she was beginning to realize that she would see quite as much of Sir Eustace as was at all advisable or even to be desired, without running after him. In fact, so shy had the previous night's flight with him made her, that she did not feel the slightest wish to encounter him again at present. To go out sleigh-driving with Scott and his sister was all that she asked of life that day.
It was a glorious morning despite all prophecies of a coming change, and she spent it joyously luging with Billy. Sir Eustace had gone ski-ing with Captain Brent, and the only glimpse she had of him was a very far one, so far that she knew him only by the magnificence of his physique as he descended the mountain-side as one borne upon wings.