Fanny’s eyes shot fire.

“That’s all very fine!  That means, of course, that you’re not going to tell me anything!”

“Fanny!” cried Diana, helplessly.  She was held spellbound by the passion, the menace in the girl’s look.  But the touch of shrinking in her attitude roused brutal violence in Fanny.

“Yes, it does!” she said, fiercely.  “I understand!—­don’t I!  I am not good enough for you, and you’ll make me feel it.  You’re going to make a smart marriage, and you won’t care whether you ever set eyes on any of us again.  Oh!  I know you’ve given us money—­or you say you will.  If I knew which side my bread was buttered, I suppose I should hold my tongue.—­But when you treat me like the dirt under your feet—­when you tell everything to that woman Mrs. Colwood, who’s no relation, and nothing in the world to you—­and leave me kicking my heels all alone, because I’m not the kind you want, and you wish to goodness I’d never come—­when you show as plain as you can that I’m a common creature—­not fit to pick up your gloves!—­I tell you I just won’t stand it.  No one would—­who knew what I know!”

The last words were flung in Diana’s teeth with all the force that wounded pride and envious wrath could give them.  Diana tottered a little.  Her hand clung to the dressing-table behind her.

“What do you know?” she said.  “Tell me at once—­what you mean.”

Fanny contemptuously shook her head.  She walked to the door, and before Diana could stop her, she had rushed across to her own room and locked herself in.

There she walked up and down panting.  She hardly understood her own rage, and she was quite conscious that, for her own interests, she had acted during the whole afternoon like a fool.  First, stung by the pique excited in her by the talk of the luncheon-table, she had let herself be exploited and explored by Alicia Drake.  She had not meant to tell her secret, but somehow she had told it, simply to give herself importance with this smart lady, and to feel her power over Diana.  Then, it was no sooner told than she was quickly conscious that she had given away an advantage, which from a tactical point of view she had infinitely better have kept; and that the command of the situation might have passed from her to this girl whom Diana had supplanted.  Furious with herself, she had tried to swear Miss Drake to silence, only to be politely but rather scornfully put aside.

Then the party had broken up.  Mr. Birch had been offended by the absence of the hostess, and had vouchsafed but a careless good-bye to Miss Merton.  The Roughsedges went off without asking her to visit them; and as for the Captain, he was an odious young man.  Since their departure, Mrs. Colwood had neglected her, and now Diana’s secret return, her long talk with Mrs. Colwood, had filled the girl’s cup of bitterness.  She had secured that day a thousand pounds for her family and herself; and at the end of it, she merely