"O, my dear!... What a dreadful remark to make! I am sure it is unlucky to speak like that."
"Then I hope it will be unlucky enough to postpone the wedding indefinitely."
Aunt Emily turned and looked at her niece as if she thought she had taken leave of her senses, but that was not by any means a new expression upon the face of Henry Pym's sister confronting Henry Pym's niece.
"Really, Diana!..." she expostulated. "I think it is hardly a subject for jesting. Marriage is a very serious thing. I hope God will bless dear Meryl with great happiness. I confess, at first, I was disappointed that she chose a Dutch husband; but Mr. van Hert has very good Huguenot blood in his veins, and he is undoubtedly a very charming man; and then, of course, her children will only be half Dutch."
"Her children ought to be bear cubs!" snapped Diana, wishing her aunt would go away and leave her to read her letter in peace.
For a moment Aunt Emily was too horrified to reply, and then Diana added, "Don't trouble to expostulate any more. I'm not really mad, only eccentric. I never could see why people make such a silly fuss about weddings; anyhow, they are all the same and all commonplace. When I marry, I shall give all my friends the shock of their lives, something to talk about for a year, and then for once in my life I shall be a public benefactor. I see Helen looking about on the terrace as if she wanted you. Shall I ask her?..."
"No, I will go in to her"; and she got up and walked towards the house, still wearing a shocked expression.
"I wonder if Helen will have the sense to manufacture some request?" thought Diana, glancing after her. "As if I could see the terrace from here!..."
Then she opened her letter.
When she had read it through once, she turned back to the beginning and read it through again. And all the time she was so rigidly still, that a little bird hopped close up to her foot to investigate.