Chapter 17
It must have been about a week or ten days after the Levee that I had the strange scene with Sibyl Elton [I am about to relate; a scene that left a painful impression on my mind and should have been sufficient to warn me of impending trouble to come had I not been too egotistical to accept any portent that presaged ill to myself. Arriving at Lord Elton's house one evening, and ascending the stairs to the drawingroom as was now my usual custom, unannounced and without ceremony, I found Diana Chesney there alone and in tears.
"Why, what's the matter?" I exclaimed in a rallying tone, for I was on very friendly and familiar terms with the little American. "You, of all people in the world, having a private 'weep'! Has our dear railway papa 'bust up'?"
She laughed, a trifle hysteri
