He gave her an amused look.
“Didn’t you bring any Paris ‘confections’?”
“I didn’t wait in Paris,” she replied. “I came straight on.”
“A long journey!” said Madame Dimitrius.
“Yes. But I was anxious to get here as soon as I could.”
“In haste to rush upon destiny!” observed Dimitrius, rising from the tea-table. “Well! Perhaps it is better than waiting for destiny to rush upon you! I will send for your luggage—it will be here in half an hour. Meanwhile, when you have quite finished your tea, will you join me in the laboratory?”
He left the room. Madame Dimitrius laid down her knitting needles and looked wistfully at Diana.
“I hope you will not be afraid of my son,” she said, “or offended at anything he may say. His brain is always working—always seeking to penetrate some new mystery,—and sometimes—from sheer physical fatigue—he may seem brusque,—but his nature is noble——”
She paused, with a slight trembling of the lip and sudden moisture in her kind blue eyes.
Impulsively, Diana took her thin delicate old hand and kissed it.