Much against his will, David burst out laughing.
Diana leaned her chin in her hands; her luminous grey eyes observed him, gravely. Little dimples of enjoyment dented either cheek; but her tone was entirely demure.
"I hope you are not a prig, Cousin David," she said, gravely.
"I have never been considered one," replied David, humbly. "But, if you say so——"
"No, no!" cried Diana. "You are not a prig; and I know I am flippant beyond words. Have you found out that I am flippant, Cousin David?"
"Yes," he said, gently. "But I have found out something besides that."
Her eyes challenged him.
"And that is——?"
"That you take refuge in flippancy, Miss Rivers, when you want to hide a deeper anxiety and earnestness of soul than you can quite understand, or altogether cope with."
"Really? Then you must explain it to me, and cope with it for me. I hope our Christmas dinner has come up to the dinner of Sarah's intentions. Have another pear; or some more nuts? I did not order crackers, because we are both grown up, and we should look so foolish in paper caps; and yet, if we had had them, we could not have resisted putting them on. Don't you know, at children's parties, the way in which grown-ups seize upon the most outré of the coloured head-gear, don them, in a moment of gay abandonment, and—forget them! I can remember now, the delight, after one of the Christmas parties in my childhood, of seeing Chappie go gravely in to say good-night to grandpapa, completely unconscious of a Glengarry bonnet, tilted waggishly on one side, or, on another occasion, of a tall peaked fool's cap, perched on her frizzled 'transformation'. Oh, to be a little child again, each Christmas-day! Yet here am I—twenty-eight! How old are you, Cousin David?... Twenty-nine? Well, I am glad you are not quite thirty. Being in another decade would have been like being in a cassock.... Why a cassock? How dense you are, my reverend cousin! My mildest jokes require explaining. Why because it would have removed you so far away, and I want you quite near this evening, not perched in a distant pulpit! You cannot really help me, unless you fully sympathise and understand. And I am in such sore straits, Cousin David, that I look upon myself as a drowning man—why do we always say 'drowning man' as if there never were any drowning women?—about to sink for the third time; and you as the rope, which constitutes my only hope of safety. Let us go to the drawing-room."