Diana said vaguely that Mrs. Fotheringham had been very kind.

“You haven’t had time to find out,” said Lady Niton, grimly.  She leaned back fanning herself, her queer white face and small black eyes alive with malice.  “Did you ever see such a crew as we were at dinner?  I reminded Oliver of the rhyme—­’The animals went in two by two.’—­It’s always the way here.  There’s no society in this house, because you can’t take anything or any one for granted.  One must always begin from the beginning.  What can I have in common with that man Barton?  The last time I talked to him, he thought Lord Grey—­the Reform Bill Lord Grey—­was a Tory—­and had never heard of Louis Philippe.  He knows nothing that we know—­and what do I care about his Socialist stuff?—­Well, now—­Alicia”—­her tone changed—­“do you admire Alicia?”

Diana, in discomfort, glanced through the archway, leading to the inner drawing-room, which framed the sparkling figure of Miss Drake—­and murmured a complimentary remark.

“No!”—­said Lady Niton, with emphasis; “no—­she’s not handsome—­though she makes people believe she is.  You’ll see—­in five years.  Of course the stupid men admire her, and she plays her cards very cleverly; but—­my dear!”—­suddenly the formidable old woman bent forward, and tapped Diana’s arm with her fan—­“let me give you a word of advice.  Don’t be too innocent here—­or too amiable.  Don’t give yourself away—­especially to Alicia!”

Diana had the disagreeable feeling of being looked through and through, physically and mentally; though at the same time she was only very vaguely conscious as to what there might be either for Lady Niton or Miss Drake to see.

“Thank you very much,” she said, trying to laugh it off.  “It is very kind of you to warn me—­but really I don’t think you need.”  She looked round her waveringly.

“May I introduce you to my friend?  Mrs. Colwood—­Lady Niton.”  For her glance of appeal had brought Mrs. Colwood to her aid, and between them they coped with this enfant terrible among dowagers till the gentlemen came in.

“Here is Sir James Childe,” said Lady Niton, rising.  “He wants to talk to you, and he don’t like me.  So I’ll go.”

Sir James, not without a sly smile, discharged arrow-like at the retreating enemy, took the seat she had vacated.

“This is your first visit to Tallyn, Miss Mallory?”

The voice speaking was the voix d’or familiar to Englishmen in many a famous case, capable of any note, any inflection, to which sarcasm or wrath, shrewdness or pathos, might desire to tune it.  In this case it was gentleness itself; and so was the countenance he turned upon Diana.  Yet it was a countenance built rather for the sterner than the milder uses of life.  A natural majesty expressed itself in the domed forehead, and in the fine head, lightly touched with gray; the eyes too were gray, the lips prominent and sensitive, the face long, and, in line, finely regular.  A face of feeling and of power; the face of a Celt, disciplined by the stress and conflict of a non-Celtic world.  Diana’s young sympathies sprang to meet it, and they were soon in easy conversation.