"I'm sure you weren't," Meryl remarked. "You never have been yet."
"That's where you are mistaken, my dear. When you are sitting in a lovely romance, gazing at a dreadfully handsome, distinguished-looking man who is the hero prince, and will presently discover you and smile divinely with all his soul in his eyes, and when instead an iron-visaged person looks up at you, and scowls and grows as black as thunder, I defy any woman not to find herself at a disadvantage."
"Well, how did you get out of it?... What did you do?..."
The alluring twinkle shone suddenly in Diana's eyes, and her lips twitched mischievously, as she replied:
"Well, I smiled divinely instead, and asked him to help me down from my high wall."
"O, you are quite incorrigible," laughed Meryl. "If I had been him I would have left you there to get down the same way you went up. But who is he?..." turning to Stanley. "He sounds rather interesting."
"He's a splendid fellow," The Kid asserted, warmly. "We couldn't stick him at first, Moore and I, but we soon found he only wants knowing. There's some history attached to his being out here that no one quite knows; but he is a Fountenay-Carew and used to be in the Blues."
"But how nice!" quoth Diana. "This is much more interesting than the old ruins. Is he rich and haughty, with lovely estates left to dishonest stewards, and all that?..."
"No very poor, I should imagine; nothing but his pay, anyhow. I believe when he was in the Blues an old uncle gave him a big allowance, but something happened, and he threw the money in the old chap's face, and the old chap chucked him out."
"And what happened to cause the quarrel?" asked Diana, all ears. "Why, he is more romantic than my prince!"