Diana was inclined to wish her visitor would not presume upon her harmlessness.
"I should as soon think of being rude to a duchess," Mrs. Reverdy went on; "or to a princess. I don't see how Evan ever made up his mind to go away and leave you."
"Is it worse to be rude to a duchess than to other people?" Diana asked, seizing the first part of this speech as a means to get over the last.
"I never tried," said Mrs. Reverdy; "I never had the opportunity, you know. I might have danced with the Prince of Wales, perhaps, when he was here. I know a lady who did, and she said she wasn't afraid of him. If you had been there, I am sure she would not have got the chance."
"You forget, I am not a dancer."
"O, not now, of course—but then you wouldn't have been a minister's wife."
"Why should not a minister's wife dance as well as other people?"
"O, I don't know!" said Mrs. Reverdy lightly; "but they never do, you know. They are obliged to set an example."
"Of what?"
"Of everything that is proper, I suppose. Don't you feel that everybody's eyes are upon you, always, watching everything you do?"