You mean"--Ruth smiled--
"that I am talking like a book? That is partly my fault and partly our
New England way; because, you see, we have to get at these things from
books. Does it, after all, matter how--if only we get it right? . . .
There's a tradition--what, I believe, you call an 'atmosphere'--and you
are proud of it and very jealous."

"If you see all this," said Lady Caroline, mollified, "our business
should be easier, with a little common sense on your part."

"And it knits you," pursued Ruth, "into a sort of family conspiracy--
the womenkind especially--like bees in a hive. The head of the family
is the queen bee, and you respect him amazingly; but all the same you
keep your own judgment, and know when to thwart and when to disobey him,
for his own and the family's good. I think you disobeyed Sir Oliver in
coming here; or, at least, deceived him and came here without his
knowledge."

"I am not accustomed," said Lady Caroline, rising, "to direct my conduct
upon my nephew's advice."

"That, more or less, is what I was trying to say. Dear madam, let me
warn you to do so, if you would manage his private affairs."

They faced each other now, upon declared war. Lady Caroline's neck was
suffused to a purplish red behind the ears. She gasped for speech.
Before she found it there came a tapping on the door, and Diana Vyell
entered.

Chapter XIII.

DIANA VYELL.

"Have you not finished yet?" Miss Diana closed the door, glanced from
one to the other, and laughed with a genial brutality. "Well, it's time
I came. Dear mamma, you seem to be getting your feathers pulled."

There was a byword among the Whig families at home (who, by
intermarrying, had learned to gauge another's weaknesses), that
"the Pett medal showed ill in reverse." Miss Diana had heard the
saying. As a Vyell--the Vyells were, before all things, critical--she
knew it to be just, as well as malicious; but as a dutiful daughter she
ought to have remembered.

As it was, her cool comment stung her mother to fury. The poor lady
pointed a finger at Ruth, and spluttered (there is no more elegant word
for the very inelegant exhibition),--

"A strumpet! One that has been whipped through the public streets."

There was a dreadful pause. Miss Diana, the first to recover herself,
stepped back to the door and held it open.

"You must excuse dear mamma," she said coolly. "She has overtired
herself."

But Lady Caroline continued t