“Miss Lansing ought to be ashamed of herself!” he thought, indignantly. “A regular hypocrite! Why, she wrote a letter of sympathy and ‘deep sorrow’ for the loss of her ‘darling Diana!’ Disgraceful! And if the story is true and Diana has really run away from us, we should be perfectly justified in disowning her!”
Full of mingled anger and bewilderment he decided to go and see the “adventuress” known as Diana May and tell her all. She would not, he thought, pretend any longer to be his daughter if she knew that his daughter was living. He found her in the loveliest of “rest gowns,” reclining on a sofa with a book in her hand,—she scarcely stirred from her attitude of perfect ease as he entered, except to turn her head round on her satin pillow and smile at him. Quite unnerved by that smile, he sat down beside her and taking her hand raised it to his lips.
“What a gallant little Pa it is!” she observed, lazily. “I wonder what ‘Ma’ would say if she saw you!”
He put on an air of mild severity.
“My dear girl,” he said. “I wish you would stop all this nonsense and be sensible! I have heard some news to-day which ought to put an end to your pretending to be what you are not. My daughter—my real daughter Diana—is alive.”
Diana laughed.
“Of course! Very much so! I should not be here if she were not. Do I seem dead?”
He made a gesture of impatience.
“Tut, tut! If you will persist——”
“Naturally I will persist!” she said, sitting up on the sofa, her delicate laces falling about her like a cloud and her fair head lifted like that of a pictured angel—“I am Diana! I suppose you’ve been seeing Sophy Lansing—she’s the only living being who knows my story and even she doesn’t recognise me now. But I can’t help her obstinacy, or yours! I am Diana!”