"One Englishman will become conceited, if you don't take care, Lady
Angleford," put in Drake, with a smile.
"That's what everybody says; and I found that you were so much liked and
so popular; and it was hateful to me that I should cause a quarrel
between you and Lord Angleford. It has made me very unhappy."
"Then don't be unhappy any longer, Lady Angleford," he said. "There has
been, and there need be, no quarrel between my uncle and me."
"Ah, now you make me happy!" she said; and she turned to him with a
little flush on her face which made her prettier than ever. "I have been
quite wretched whenever I thought of you or heard your name. People
spoke of you as if you had died, or got the measles, with a kind of pity
in their voices which made me mad and hate myself. You see, as I said, I
didn't realize what I was doing. I didn't realize that I was coming
between an hereditary legislator and his descendant and heir."
Drake could not help smiling.
"You had better not call my uncle an hereditary legislator, Lady
Angleford. I don't think he'd like it."
"But he is, isn't he?" she said. "It is so difficult for an American to
understand these things. We are supposed to have the peerage by heart;
but we haven't. It's all a mystery and a tangle to us, even the best of
us. But I try not to make mistakes. And now I want you to tell me that
we are friends. That is so, isn't it?"
She held out her tiny and perfectly gloved hand with a mixture of
timidity and impulsiveness which touched Drake.
"Indeed, I hope we are, Lady Angleford," he said.
She looked at him wistfully.
"You couldn't call me 'aunt,' I suppose?"
Drake laughed outright.
"I'm afraid I couldn't," he said. "You are far too young for that."
"I am sorry," she said. "I think I should have liked you to call me
aunt. But never mind. I must be satisfied with knowing that we are
friends, and that you bear me no ill will. And now, I think I will go.
My little plot has been rather successful, after all, hasn't it?"
"Quite a perfect success," said Drake. "And I congratulate you upon it."
"Don't tell Lord Angleford," she said. "He'll say it was 'so American';
and I do hate him to say that."