"Diana, I regret to observe that your conversation lacks the flavour of respectability demanded by your present circumstances," he remarked. "I fear you'll never be an ornament to any clerical household."
"No. Pas mon métier. Respectability isn't in the least a sine qua non for a prima donna—far from it!"
Stair chuckled.
"To hear you talk, no one would imagine that in reality you were the most conventional of prudes," he flung at her.
"Oh, but I'm growing out of it," she returned hopefully. "Yesterday, for instance, I palled up with a perfectly strange young man. We conversed together as though we had known each other all our lives, shared the same table for dinner—"
"You didn't?" broke in Joan, a trifle shocked.
Diana nodded serenely.
"Indeed I did. And what was the reward of my misdeeds? Why, there he was at hand to save me when the smash came!"
"Who was he?" asked Joan curiously. "Any one from this part of the world?"
"I haven't the faintest idea," replied Diana. "I actually never inquired to whom I was indebted for my life and the various other trifles which he rescued for me from the wreck of our compartment. The only clue I have is the handkerchief he bound round my arm. It's very bluggy and it's marked M.E."