"Your uncle said in the notes he left each of us this morning that he had gone for local colour. Is it possible that you think 'local colour' should be spelled Mazod Orr?"
This time it was Diana's expression that puzzled Straight as she looked at him. She was far too modern a young woman to be shocked at the suggestion. Yet there was a something in her eye...
"I see that Arnold has been repeating the silly tittle-tattle which is going the round in some quarters," she said scornfully. "Why, Alison and Mazod Orr are tremendous friends—she is seeing her off herself for Paris this morning."
There was a pause.
"And how's Arnold?" Straight asked; "was it anything serious?" The name of Mrs. Orr had suggested that of Arnold Haslar to him, for Diana's brother was madly in love with the widow. Straight knew that Diana had had a telephone message early this morning that had made her hurry home, a message about Arnold having been found beside his breakfast table in a state verging on collapse.
"The doctor says it's trying to be 'flu. I wanted to stay, but Arnold's not to see any one. If he remains in bed and keeps absolutely quiet, the doctor thinks he may escape and be up to-morrow."
"Odd if Arnold should catch 'flu," Straight thought. "He always seemed to be immune. He looked all right last night."
"The doctor says he must have had a shock of some kind, or some great excitement. Do you know of anything?" She looked at Straight rather narrowly. He did not, and said so.
"Must have happened when he was called out of town last night," he suggested. "It was a business call, he told me, else we had planned to celebrate my arrival, as you know, by some crimson paint. If it isn't due to business worry, then it may be remorse at his having cut me dead this morning. Absolutely dead."
"Where was this?" she asked sceptically.
"Just outside a huge building on the corner of a main road near here. I got lost trying to take an after-breakfast stroll."
"Heath Mansions." Diana tapped her fingers on the table restlessly. "He didn't see you evidently," she went on in a rather absent-minded, ruminative voice.
"That's just it," he retorted. "Arnold shouldn't moon by daylight. I waved a friendly paw, and he fled as though it held a writ. Probably he was feeling ill. He looked perfectly ghastly."
Once more an odd look crossed Diana's face.
"And he left you early last night?" she asked, as though worried by that fact.
"Nearly as soon as I got there," Straight said, with a smile. "But in response to a telephone call, which made it less of a snub direct."
She did not smile. A silence fell on the room.
Suddenly Diana drew back farther into the shadow. Newman, her uncle's secretary, was walking past the open window outside. He looked up. Their eyes, his and hers, met. Newman's cigarette-case dropped with a sharp tinkle, as though something in her glance had startled him. He retrieved it instantly, and passing on, lit a cigarette rather hastily.
His movements were singularly free from hurry, as a rule. Like his face, they suggested plenty of reserve power. There was something foreign about his appearance: a little in his easy grace, more in his seldom-seen, faintly ironic, smile, most of all in the melancholy of his dark, brooding eyes, which rarely looked up. Newman had a habit of carrying on a whole conversation with his eyes on his cigarette, or looking out of the window. In build he was exceptionally lean and lithe, with small, strong bones.
"I must ask Newman about these Spanish books," Straight murmured. "Mr. Clifford told me in that talk we had last night after dinner, that he's making himself into quite an authority on Spain."
Diana said nothing.
"Mr. Clifford seemed to think him very clever, but—" Then Straight too decided to say no more.
"Oh, he is!" Diana spoke with a certain grimness, "so clever that one wonders why he remains content with life at Thornbush year after year. There's some reason why he refuses every offer, and he's had some good ones. Just as there's some reason why he cultivates Arnold as he does. Mr. Newman does nothing without a reason."
Diana spoke half under her breath.
"You sound afraid of him!" Straight gave her a very sharp glance.
Diana's laugh failed to achieve carelessness.
"I loathe him. I can't think why he should try so tremendously to ingratiate himself with Arnold, who, unfortunately, has taken the most tremendous fancy to him."
"Perhaps the fact that Arnold's your only brother," Dick suggested.
"Mr. Newman and I feel alike about each other," Diana said shortly, "mutual dislike. On my side, distrust as well. Profound distrust."
"I must keep out of his way," Straight said lightly.
"On, he won't bother you! You're of no importance to him. There's nothing to be gained by cultivating you"—she flushed at her own rudeness and added hastily, "except the best of pals. And possibly Mr. Newman may scent the rising man in you that you are, Dick. However, even so, you'll be safe. I can't imagine any one pulling the wool over your eyes."
"I'm done brown quite often," he murmured sadly.
"Not you!" she scoffed. "I always know that if ever any of us gets into a hole you'll get us out." She bit her lip, as though the words had slipped out. "Edward Clifford thinks the paper you sent in to the Libraries Association a masterpiece. He said he was going to keep an eye on you."
"A benevolent or a watchful eye?"
Both laughed. Straight looked down into her face not so far below his own.
"Were you pleased?" he asked abruptly.
"For your sake—very much." She laughed again, but Straight did not laugh back.
"Can't you manage to love me, Diana?" he asked, with a sudden passion in his voice.
"I thought we talked that over in Melbourne." She turned away, not shyly—Diana was never shy—but with something almost of impatience in her big eyes.
"Love!" she repeated under her breath. "Who does love, really? What is it? How does it come? How do you know when it's real, when it's not? I like you, Dick. I respect your character immensely—"
"Then give me a chance Give me a try-out!" he urged again.
Diana only shook her head.
"I'll make you love me"—he spoke as though vowing a vow unto himself—"with the real love. The love that stands by a man when all else drops away. You have it in you, that I'll swear. You could love, Diana!"
Diana was very pale.
"Not with the love that calls the world well lost." There was a note of contempt in her voice. Was it for herself? or for the subject of their talk? It was hard to tell with Diana.
"I haven't that in me. For your own sake, make no mistake! But apart from that, I could be a good helper to an ambitious, rising man. If ever I do agree to marry any one, I'll back him up well."
"But you won't agree to marry—any one—now?" Straight asked in his usual, rather measured voice.
"Not yet. Perhaps I shall never have any better answer. It won't be any loss, believe me. I'm not deep. I'm shallow. Shallow, and pleasure-loving, and greedy for good things." Her tone was trivial again. "And now, let's talk of something else. I mean it." Her eyes warned him not to press her for the present.
"Well, then, let us discuss whether the Foreign Office secret-service men will catch that chap Sir Edward talked about so much yesterday at dinner. The anarchist with the odd name..." Straight looked to Diana to help him out. She did not glance up.
"Et—Etch—Sounds as if I were sneezing!" he said crossly. "Etche—What was it?"
She