poiled! All its
delicate beauty changed to a sordid suspicion, it lay in ruins now
because of her thoughtless words. She dared not guess at what he must be
thinking! For a desperate second she considered flight. Then proudly
she raised her head. One more thing, at least, about her now he should
learn!

"Did you know--?" she began, then broke off irresolute.

Blair glanced at her and again their eyes met. This time he did not
smile.

"Know what?" he asked.

She laughed with embarrassment.

"It really isn't of any interest to you, but--" and again she paused.

"Suppose you let me be the judge of that," he suggested stiffly. "You're
making me horribly curious, you know. You can't very well drop the
subject now." He was evidently making an effort at pleasantry.

She flushed brightly.

"Of course it couldn't be of the slightest importance to anyone except
myself," she explained. Then, as if doubting her courage to continue
long, she hurried on, "but one reason I take such an interest in--your
work is because I'm a direct descendant of Lord Harold myself. He became
the Duke of Norfolk afterward, you know, but Hastings was always the
family name." She flashed him a haughty glance, a pride that changed to
wide-eyed surprise as she noted his amazement.

"Not really?" He had turned abruptly and in his eyes there was a
curious expression, almost of alarm. "How extraordinary,--how perfectly
extraordinary!"

"Why extraordinary?" That her cup of humiliation might brim to the full,
resentment was added to confusion. "You consider me unworthy, then, of
having had nobility among my ancestry? But, just the same, there
was nothing strange about it. The colonies were chiefly English,
you remember!" He smiled at her sarcasm. "The duke married one of
Elizabeth's ladies-in-waiting after he went home and there was a younger
son, and he had a younger son, and after a long time one of them came
over to Virginia just like anybody else. They have always been good,
loyal, highly respected American citizens," she told him fiercely, "and
I'm proud of them! Besides--" with reckless emphasis, "I've always felt
so sorry for Wildenai."

But at this point, quite incomprehensibly, Blair broke into peals of
laughter.

"And by and by, after a long, long time, one of these good, loyal,
American citizens that we're both so proud of had a hot-tempered, most
disloyal little daughter who intends to show her employer his proper
place before she di