“Why do they consent to come here?” she asked, wondering.  “I suppose they despise the rich.”

“Not at all!  The poor things—­the rich—­can’t help themselves—­just yet. We come here—­because we mean to use the rich.”

“You!—­you too?”

“A Fabian—­” he said, smiling.  “Which means that I am not in such a hurry as Barton.”

“To ruin your country?  You would only murder her by degrees?”—­flashed Diana.

“Ah!—­you throw down the glove?—­so soon?  Shall we postpone it for a course or two?  I am no use till I have fed.”

Diana laughed.  They fell into a gossip about their neighbors.  The plain young man, with a shock of fair hair, a merry eye, a short chin, and the spirits of a school-boy, sitting on Lady Niton’s left, was, it seemed, the particular pet and protege of that masterful old lady.  Diana remembered to have seen him at tea-time in Miss Drake’s train.  Lady Niton, she was told, disliked her own sons, but was never tired of befriending two or three young men who took her fancy.  Bobbie Forbes was a constant frequenter of her house on Campden Hill.  “But he is no toady.  He tells her a number of plain truths—­and amuses her guests.  In return she provides him with what she calls ’the best society’—­and pushes his interests in season and out of season.  He is in the Foreign Office, and she is at present manoeuvring to get him attached to the Special Mission which is going out to Constantinople.”

Diana glanced across the table, and in doing so met the eyes of Mr. Bobbie Forbes, which laughed into hers—­involuntarily—­as much as to say—­“You see my plight?—­ridiculous, isn’t it?”

For Lady Niton was keeping a greedy conversational hold on both Marsham and the young man, pouncing to right or left, as either showed a disposition to escape from it—­so that Forbes was violently withheld from Alicia Drake, his rightful lady, and Marsham could engage in no consecutive conversation with Diana.

“No escape for you!” smiled Mr. Frobisher, presently, observing the position.  “Lady Niton always devastates a dinner-party.”

Diana protested that she was quite content.  Might she assume, after the fourth course, that his hunger was at least scotched and conversation thrown open?

“I am fortified—­thank you.  Shall we go back to where we left off?  You had just accused me of ruining the country?”

“By easy stages,” said Diana.  “Wasn’t that where we had come to?  But first—­tell me, because it’s all so puzzling!—­do you and Mr. Marsham agree?”

“A good deal.  But he thinks he can use us—­which is his mistake.”

“And Mr. Ferrier?”

Mr. Frobisher shook his head good-humoredly.

“No, no!—­Ferrier is a Whig—­the Whig of to-day, bien entendu, who is a very different person from the Whig of yesterday—­still, a Whig, an individualist, a moderate man.  He leads the Liberal party—­and it is changing all the time under his hand into something he dreads and detests.  The party can’t do without him now—­but—­”