"How do you know that?" said the Colonel gruffly. "Yes, you can go--you can go. But behave yourself soberly, there's a good girl. And remember--no running after the other fellow to-night! I won't have it. Is that understood?"
Dinah, too rejoiced over this concession to trouble about future prohibitions, gave cheerful acquiescence to the fiat. Perhaps she was beginning to realize that she would see quite as much of Sir Eustace as was at all advisable or even to be desired, without running after him. In fact, so shy had the previous night's flight with him made her, that she did not feel the slightest wish to encounter him again at present. To go out sleigh-driving with Scott and his sister was all that she asked of life that day.
It was a glorious morning despite all prophecies of a coming change, and she spent it joyously luging with Billy. Sir Eustace had gone ski-ing with Captain Brent, and the only glimpse she had of him was a very far one, so far that she knew him only by the magnificence of his physique as he descended the mountain-side as one borne upon wings.
She recalled the brief conversation that the brothers had held in her hearing the night before, and marvelled at the memory of Scott's attitude towards him.
"He isn't a bit afraid of him," she reflected. "In fact he behaves exactly as if he were the bigger of the two."
This phenomenon puzzled her very considerably, for Scott was wholly lacking in the pomposity that characterizes many little men. She wondered what had been the subject of their discussion. It had been connected with Isabel, she felt sure. She was glad to think that she had Scott to protect her, for there was something of tyranny about the elder brother from which she shrank instinctively, his magnetism notwithstanding, and the thought of poor, tragic Isabel being coerced by it was intolerable.
The memory of the latter's resolution to make the acquaintance of the de Vignes recurred to her as she and Billy returned for luncheon. Would she carry it out? She wondered. The look that Scott had flung at the old nurse dwelt in her mind. It would evidently be an extraordinary move if she did.
They reached the hotel, Rose and another girl had just come up from the rink together. A little knot of people were gathered on the verandah. Dinah and Billy kept behind Rose and her companion; but in a moment Dinah heard her name.
The group parted, and she saw Isabel Everard, very tall and stately in a deep purple coat, standing with Lady Grace de Vigne.