“Precisely! You have expressed it perfectly!” and his keen eyes flashed over her comprehensively. “But let us keep to business. You are a spinster, and I presume you are, in the terms of my advertisement, ‘alone in the world, without claims on your time or your affections.’ Is that so?”
Quietly she answered:
“That is so.”
“Now you will remember I asked for ‘a courageous and determined woman of mature years.’ You do not look very ‘mature’——”
“I am past forty,” said Diana.
“A frank, but unnecessary admission,” he answered, smiling. “You should never admit to more years than your appearance gives you. However, I am glad you told me, as it better suits my purpose. And you consider yourself ‘courageous and determined’?”
She looked at him straightly.
“I think I am—I hope I am,” she said. “I have had many disillusions and have lost all I once hoped to win; so that I can honestly say even death would not matter to me, as I have nothing to live for. Except the love of Nature and its beauty——”
“And its wisdom and mastery of all things,” finished Dimitrius. “And to feel that unless we match its wisdom with our will to be instructed, and its mastery with our obedience and worship, we ‘shall surely die’!”
His eyes flashed upon her with a curious expression, and just for a passing moment she felt a little afraid of him. He went on, speaking with deliberate emphasis: