Miss Fanny had replied, rather carelessly, that she would think about it.
It was at this that the eager sweetness of Diana's manner to her cousin had shown its first cooling.

And Mrs.Colwood had curiously observed that at the first sign of shrinking on her part, Miss Fanny's demeanor had instantly changed.

It had become sugared and flattering to a degree.
Everything in the house was "sweet"; the old silver used at table, with the Mallory crest, was praised extravagantly; the cooking no less.

Yet still Diana's tired silence had grown; and the watching eyes of this amazing young woman had been, in Mrs.Colwood's belief, now insolently and now anxiously, aware of it.
Insolence!--that really, if one came to think of it, had been the note of Miss Merton's whole behavior from the beginning--an ill-concealed, hardly restrained insolence, toward the girl, two years older than herself, who had received her with such tender effusion, and was, moreover, in a position to help her so materially.

What could it--what did it mean?
Mrs.Colwood stood at the foot of the stairs a moment, lost in a trance of wonderment.