“Yes, my uncle, you do.”
“It’s a devilish selfish kind of love, then.”
“It is that,” agreed Diana softly.
“I can’t,” confessed Marcus, “bear to think of your aunt waiting to snatch you from me. She’s so violent.”
Diana laughed. “What a delightful description of Aunt Elsie!”
“Tell me—what is she like?”
“She’s devilish unselfish—very charming—and she wears an elastic to keep her hat on—”
“Don’t!” said Marcus; he had had enough.
There entered into Marcus’s soul a great peace (when he could forget the aunt); into his house floods of sunshine. The blinds were pulled up, right up to the top, let go with a bang. The things in his house that he had accounted beautiful must now court comparison with a slip of a girl, who to her uncle’s mind was the very first expression of beauty. Imagine, then, his chagrin when, one night at a ball, a friend of his, who had bought for him many of his treasures, who was known to be a judge of beauty, pronounced Diana attractive and fascinating without being strictly beautiful. If a connoisseur had found his Charles II chalice a copy he could not have felt more keenly the affront. If he had been a child he would have said, “Shan’t play any more,” so deeply was he hurt. Seeing a nice-looking, pretty woman sitting by herself, with an expression on her face as though she were singing hymns to her babies in bed, he went up and spoke to her. He knew her, of course, but did not always find time to speak to her, for she never gathered a crowd and he hated to be conspicuous—unless at the same time distinguished.
“I am with my niece,” he said, sitting down.