She smiled kindly.  ‘It will be our secret.’

‘I thank you with all my heart, Lady Dunstane.’

He was not a weaver of phrases in distress.  His blunt reserve was eloquent of it to her, and she liked him the better; could have thanked him, too, for leaving her promptly.

When she was alone she took in the contents of the letter at a hasty glimpse.  It was of one paragraph, and fired its shot like a cannon with the muzzle at her breast:—­

’My own Emmy,—­I have been asked in marriage by Mr. Warwick, and
have accepted him.  Signify your approval, for I have decided that
it is the wisest thing a waif can do.  We are to live at The
Crossways for four months of the year, so I shall have Dada in his
best days and all my youngest dreams, my sunrise and morning dew,
surrounding me; my old home for my new one.  I write in haste, to
you first, burning to hear from you.  Send your blessing to yours in
life and death, through all transformations,

          
                                        ‘Tony.’

That was all.  Not a word of the lover about to be decorated with the title of husband.  No confession of love, nor a single supplicating word to her friend, in excuse for the abrupt decision to so grave a step.  Her previous description of, him, as a ‘gentlemanly official’ in his appearance, conjured him up most distastefully.  True, she might have made a more lamentable choice; a silly lordling, or a hero of scandals; but if a gentlemanly official was of stabler mould, he failed to harmonize quite so well with the idea of a creature like Tony.  Perhaps Mr. Redworth also failed in something.  Where was the man fitly to mate her!  Mr. Redworth, however, was manly and trustworthy, of the finest Saxon type in build and in character.  He had great qualities, and his excess of scrupulousness was most pitiable.

She read:  ‘The wisest thing a waif can do.’  It bore a sound of desperation.  Avowedly Tony had accepted him without being in love.  Or was she masking the passion?  No:  had it been a case of love, she would have written very differently to her friend.

Lady Dunstane controlled the pricking of the wound inflicted by Diana’s novel exercise in laconics where the fullest flow was due to tenderness, and despatched felicitations upon the text of the initial line:  ’Wonders are always happening.’  She wrote to hide vexation beneath surprise; naturally betraying it.  ’I must hope and pray that you have not been precipitate.’  Her curiosity to inspect the happiest of men, the most genuine part of her letter, was expressed coldly.