There was something vivid and arresting about her to-night, as
though she were tremulously aware that she was about to take the first
step along her road as a public singer. A touch of excitement had
added an unwonted brilliance to her eyes, while a faint flush came and
went swiftly in her cheeks.
Bunty, without knowing quite what it was that appealed, was suddenly
conscious of the sheer physical charm of her.
"You are rather wonderful," she said consideringly.
A sense of the sharp contrast between them smote Diana almost
painfully--she herself, young and radiant, holding in her slender
throat a key that would unlock the doors of the whole world, and beside
her the little boarding-house help, equally young, and with all youth's
big demands pent up within her, yet ahead of her only a drab vista of
other boarding-houses--some better, some worse, mayhap--but always
eating the bread of servitude, her only possible way of escape by means
of matrimony with some little underpaid clerk.
And what had Bunty done to deserve so poor a lot? Hers was
unquestionably by far the finer character of the two, as Diana frankly
admitted to herself. In truth, the apparent injustices of fate made a
riddle hard to read.
"And you,"--Diana spoke impulsively--"you are the dearest thing
imaginable. I wish you were coming with me."
"I should like to hear you sing in those big rooms," acknowledged
Bunty, a little wistfully.
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