"Does that mean that we are kindred spirits?" he asked, and suddenly the clasp of his hands was close and intimate.
"I expect it does," said Dinah; but she said it with a touch of uneasiness. The voice that had spoken within her the night before, warning her, urging her to be gone, was beginning to murmur again, bidding her to beware.
She turned from the subject with ready versatility, obedient to the danger-signal. "Oh, there is Rose! I am afraid I ran away from her after dinner. They went upstairs for coffee, but I was so dreadfully afraid of being stopped that I hung behind and escaped. I do hope the Colonel won't be in a wax again. But I don't see that there was anything wicked in it; for Lady Grace herself is coming to look on presently."
"I skated with Miss de Vigne nearly all the afternoon," observed Sir Eustace. "But she is a regular ice-maiden. I couldn't get any enthusiasm out of her. Tell me, is she like that all through? Or is it just a pose?"
"Oh, I don't know," Dinah said. "I've never got through the outer crust. But then of course I'm far beneath her."
"How so?" asked Sir Eustace.
She laughed up at him with the happy confidence of a child. "Can't you see it for yourself? I--I am a mere guttersnipe compared to the de Vignes. They live in a great house with lots of servants and cars. They never do a thing for themselves. I don't suppose Rose could do her hair to save her life. While we--we live in a tumble-down, ramshackle old place, and do all the work ourselves. I've never been away from home in my life before. You see, we're poor, and Billy's schooling takes up a lot of money. I had to leave school when he first went as a boarder. And that is three years ago now. So I have forgotten all I ever learnt."
"Except dancing," he suggested.
"Oh, well, that's born in me. I couldn't very well forget that. My mother--" Dinah hesitated momentarily--"my mother was a dancer before she married."
"And she taught you?" asked Sir Eustace.
"No, no! She never taught me anything except useful things--like cooking and sewing and house-work. And I detest them all," said Dinah frankly. "I like sweeping the garden and digging the potatoes far better."
"She keeps you busy then," commented Sir Eustace, with semi-humorous interest.