“You ought to have the Barnstaple ones, but she’s capable of outliving the whole of us.”
CHAPTER XXII
AS Lee walked along the many corridors to her mother-in-law’s rooms she reflected that she was grateful Lord Barnstaple had not refrained from mentioning the diamonds: their vision was both pleasing and sustaining. She was obliged to give serious thought to the coming interview, but they glittered in the background and poured their soothing light along her nerves.
Lady Barnstaple had but just risen from her afternoon nap and was drinking her tea. She looked cross and dishevelled.
“Do sit down,” she said, as Lee picked up a porcelain ornament from the mantel and examined it. “I hate people to stand round in spots.”
Lee took a chair opposite her mother-in-law. She was the last person to shirk a responsibility when she faced the point.
“You have seemed very nervous lately,” she said. “Is anything the matter?”
“Yes, everything is. I wish I could simply hurt some people. I’d go a long ways aside to do it. What right have these God-Almighty English to put on such airs, anyhow? One person’s exactly as good as another. I come from a free country and I like it.”
“I wonder you have deserted it for five-and-twenty years. But it is still there.”
“Oh, I don’t doubt you’d like to get rid of me. But you won’t. I’ve worn myself out getting to the top, and on the top I’ll stay. I’d be just nothing in New York. And Chicago—good Lord!”