“She is not the young lady of the Castle. I am the young lady of the Castle. But have you ever seen her?”
“Once; and then she was rude to me.”
“Ah! I thought so. I don’t think she could be very polite to anybody. Now, suppose you and I become friends? The Castle belongs to me—or will when Uncle Ned dies. I can order people to come or people to go; and I order you to come. You shall come up to the house with me. You shall have lunch with me; you shall really. I have got a lovely suite of rooms—a bedroom of blue-and-silver and a little sitting-room for my own use; and you shall come there, and Jasper shall serve us both. Do you know that you are sweetly pretty?—just like a gipsy. You are lovely! Will you come with me now? Do! come at once.”
Sylvia laughed. She looked full at Evelyn; then she said abruptly:
“May I ask you a very straight question?”
“I love straight questions,” replied Evelyn.
“Can you give me a right, good, big lunch? Do you know that I am very hungry? Were you ever very hungry?”
“Oh, sometimes,” replied Evelyn, staring very hard at her. “I lived on a ranch, you know—or perhaps you don’t know.”
“I don’t know what a ranch is.”
“How funny! I thought everybody knew. You see, I am not English; I am Tasmanian. My father was an Englishman, but he died when I was a little baby, and I lived with mothery—the sweetest, the dearest, the darlingest woman on earth—on a ranch in Tasmania. Mothery is dead, and I have come here, and all the place will belong to me—not to Audrey—some day. Yes, I was hungry when we went on long expeditions, which we used to do in fine weather, but there was always something handy to eat. I have heard of people who are hungry and there is nothing handy to eat. Do you belong to that sort?”