"You're a woman," he declared, now, in summing up his case. "You're a woman. If you'd been married, you would probably have had children. You ought to be able to tell me exactly what to do."
Flushes of shy rapture illumined and softened her ill-assorted features on being cited as the type of maternity and sex, so that when she replied it was with an air of authority.
"I can tell you what to do, Derek; but I've done it already, and you wouldn't listen. You should send her to a good school--"
"It's too late for that. She wouldn't go."
"Then you should have some woman to live in your house who would be wise enough to manage her."
He jerked out the monosyllable, and began, according to his custom when puzzled or annoyed, to stride up and down the library.
"That is," Miss Lucilla went on, "you wouldn't like it. It would bore you to see a stranger in the house."
"And so you would sacrifice Dorothea to your personal convenience."
"I wouldn't, if there was a woman competent to take the place; but there isn't."
The dark flush that swept into his face made it clear to Lucilla that his question was not put for purposes of information. She had remarked in Derek during the past few weeks a manner of fighting shy of Diane at variance with his usual method with women. Safety in flight was the course he commonly adopted; but since Diane appeared on the scene, Lucilla had noticed that it was flight with a curious tendency to looking backward.
"I said Diane Eveleth," she replied, in tactful answer to his superfluous question; "and I assure you she's fully equal to the duties you would require of her. I suppose you've never noticed her especially--?"
"I used to know her a little," he said, in an offhand manner. "I've seen her here. That's all."
"If a woman could have been made on purpose for what you want, it's she."
"It's no use trying to be sarcastic about it, Derek. She's not the one to suffer by it; it's Dorothea. Though, when it comes to suffering, she has her share, poor thing."
"I suppose no decent woman who has just lost her husband is expected to be absolutely hilarious over the event."
"She hasn't _just_ lost him; it's getting on toward a year. And, besides, it isn't only that. As a matter of fact, I don't believe she ever loved him as she could love the man to whom she gave her heart. If grief was her only trouble, I am sure the poor thing could bear it."