Errington's face, as he turned to reply, wore that politely blank expression which Diana had encountered more than once when conversing with him—always should she chance to touch on any subject the natural answer to which might have revealed something of the man's private life.
"Oh," he answered the Rector lightly, "I believe there's a dash of foreign blood in my veins, but I've a right to call myself an Englishman."
After dinner, while the two men had their smoke, Diana, heedless of Joan's common-sense remonstrance on the score of dew-drenched grass, flung on a cloak and wandered restlessly out into the moonlit garden. She felt that it would be an utter impossibility to sit still, waiting until the men came into the drawing-room, and she paced slowly backwards and forwards across the lawn, a slight, shadowy figure in the patch of silver light.
Presently she saw the French window of the dining-room open, and Max Errington step across the threshold and come swiftly over the lawn towards her.
"I see you are bent on courting rheumatic fever—to say nothing of a sore throat," he said quietly, "and I've come to take you indoors."
Diana was instantly filled with a perverse desire to remain where she was.
"I'm not in the least cold, thank you," she replied stiffly, "And—I like it out here."
"You may not be cold," he returned composedly. "But I'm quite sure your feet are damp. Come along."
He put his arm under hers, impelling her gently in the direction of the house, and, rather to her own surprise, she found herself accompanying him without further opposition.
Arrived at the house, he knelt down and, taking up her foot in his hand, deliberately removed the little pointed slipper.