“You are very conscientious,” he said, fixing his eyes keenly upon her—“Is she not, mother mine? She is afraid she will learn something important and necessary to my work before I have a chance to study it for myself. Loyal Miss Diana!”
Madame Dimitrius glanced wistfully from her son to Diana, and from Diana back to her son again.
“Yes, she is loyal, Féodor! You have found a treasure in her,” she said—“I am sure of it. It seems a providence that she came to us.”
“Is it not Shakespeare who says, ‘There’s a special providence in the fall of a sparrow’?” he queried lightly. “How much more ‘special’ then is the coming of a Diana!”
It was the first time he had used her Christian name without any ceremonious prefix in her presence, and she was conscious of a thrill of pleasure, for which she instantly reproached herself. “I have no business to care what or how he calls me,” she thought. “He’s my employer,—nothing more.”
“Diana,” repeated Dimitrius, watching her narrowly from under his now half-shut eyelids. “Diana is a name fraught with beautiful associations—the divine huntress—the goddess of the moon! Diana, the fleet of foot—the lady of the silver bow! What poets’ dreams, what delicate illusions, what lovely legends are clustered round the name!”
She looked at him, half amused, half indifferent.
“Yes,—it is a thousand pities I was ever given such a name,” she said. “If I were a Martha, a Deborah or a Sarah, it would suit me much better. But Diana! It suggests a beautiful young woman——”
“You were young once!” he suggested, meaningly.
“Ah, yes, once!” and she sighed. “Once is a long time ago!”