"Does it please you to do things for me?" I asked.
"Why, of course."
"You do like poor little me a tiny bit, then?" I couldn't help
adding--"Even though I'm different from other girls?"
"Perhaps more for that reason," he said, with his voice as kind as his
eyes.
"Oh, what shall I do if you go away!" I burst out, partly because I
really meant it, and partly because I hoped it might lead him on to say
what I wanted so much to hear. "Suppose you get that consulship at
Algiers."
"I hope I may," he said quickly. "A consulship isn't a very great
thing--but--it's a beginning. I want it badly."
"I wish I had some influence with the Foreign Secretary," said I, not
telling him that the man actually dislikes me, and looks at me as if I
were a toad. "Of course, he's Lord Mountstuart's cousin, and
brother-in-law as well, and that makes him seem quite in the family,
doesn't it? But it isn't as if I were really related to Lady
Mountstuart. I was never sorry before that Di and I are only
step-sisters--no, not a bit sorry, though her mother had all the money,
and brought it to my poor father; but now I wish I were Lady
Mountstuart's niece, and that I had some of the coaxing, 'girly' ways Di
can put on when she wants to get something out of people.
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