Diana listened silently, but inwardly her mind was full of critical reactions.  Was this what Mr. Marsham most admired, his ideal of what a woman should be?  Was he exalting, exaggerating it a little, by way of antithesis to those old-fashioned surroundings, that unreal atmosphere, as he would call it, in which, for instance, he had found her—­Diana—­at Rapallo—­under her father’s influence and bringing up?  The notion spurred her pride as well as her loyalty to her father.  She began to hold herself rather stiffly, to throw in a critical remark or two, to be a little flippant even, at Miss Vincent’s expense.  Homage so warm laid at the feet of one ideal was—­she felt it—­a disparagement of others; she stood for those others; and presently Marsham began to realize a hurtling of shafts in the air, an incipient battle between them.

He accepted it with delight.  Still the same poetical, combative, impulsive creature, with the deep soft voice!  She pleased his senses; she stirred his mind; and he would have thrown himself into one of the old Rapallo arguments with her then and there but for the gad-fly at his elbow.

* * * * *

Immediately after dinner Lady Niton possessed herself of Diana.  “Come here, please, Miss Mallory!  I wish to make your acquaintance,” Thus commanded, the laughing but rebellious Diana allowed herself to be led to a corner of the over-illuminated drawing-room.

“Well!”—­said Lady Niton, observing her—­“so you have come to settle in these parts?”

Diana assented.

“What made you choose Brookshire?” The question was enforced by a pair of needle-sharp eyes.  “There isn’t a person worth talking to within a radius of twenty miles.”

Diana declined to agree with her; whereupon Lady Niton impatiently exclaimed:  “Tut—­tut!  One might as well milk he-goats as talk to the people here.  Nothing to be got out of any of them.  Do you like conversation?”

“Immensely!”

“Hum!—­But mind you don’t talk too much.  Oliver talks a great deal more than is good for him.  So you met Oliver in Italy?  What do you think of him?”

Diana, keeping a grip on laughter, said something civil.

“Oh, Oliver’s clever enough—­and ambitious!” Lady Niton threw up her hands.  “But I’ll tell you what stands in his way.  He says too sharp things of people.  Do you notice that?”

“He is very critical,” said Diana, evasively.

“Oh, Lord, much worse than that!” said Lady Niton, coolly.  “He makes himself very unpopular.  You should tell him so.”

“That would be hardly my place.” said Diana, flushing a little.

Lady Niton stared at her a moment rather hard—­then said:  “But he’s honey and balm itself compared to Isabel!  The Marshams are old friends of mine, but I don’t pretend to like Isabel Fotheringham at all.  She calls herself a Radical, and there’s no one insists more upon their birth and their advantages than she.  Don’t let her bully you—­come to me if she does—­I’ll protect you.”