You have
returned me my Rossetti."
She laughed merrily.
"You made sure I should lose or keep it?"
"It is the first book that anybody has returned to me for years. I was
quite resigned."
"To a damaging estimate of my character? Thank you very much!"
"I wonder"--he said, in another tone--"what sort of estimate you have
of _my_ character--false, or true?"
"Well, there have been a great many surprises!" said Diana, raising her
eyebrows.
"In the matter of my character?"
"Not altogether."
"My surroundings? You mean I talked Radicalism--or, as you would call
it, Socialism--to you at Portofino, and here you find me in the
character of a sporting Squire?"
"I hear"--she said, deliberately looking about her--"that this is the
finest shoot in the county."
"It is. There is no denying it. But, in the first place, it's my
mother's shoot, not mine--the estate is hers, not mine--and she wishes
old customs to be kept up. In the next--well, of course, the truth is
that I like it abominably!"
He had thrust his cap into his pocket, and was walking bareheaded. In
the glow of the evening air his strong manhood seemed to gain an added
force and vitality.
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