In spite of gayety and expectation, however, she felt her courage fail her a little as she left her room and ventured out into the big populous house.  Her solitary bringing-up had made her liable to fits of shyness amid her general expansiveness, and it was a relief to meet no one—­least of all, Alicia Drake—­on her way down-stairs.  Mrs. Colwood, indeed, was waiting for her at the end of the passage, and Diana held her hand a little as they descended.

A male voice was speaking in the hall—­Mr. Marsham giving the last directions for the day to the head keeper.  The voice was sharp and peremptory—­too peremptory, one might have thought, for democracy addressing a brother.  But the keeper, a gray-haired, weather-beaten man of fifty, bowed himself out respectfully, and Marsham turned to greet Diana.  Mrs. Colwood saw the kindling of his eyes as they fell on the girl’s morning freshness.  No sharpness in the voice now!—­he was all eagerness to escort and serve his guests.

He led them to the breakfast-room, which seemed to be in an uproar, caused apparently by Bobbie Forbes and Lady Niton, who were talking at each other across the table.

“What is the matter?” asked Diana, as she slipped into a place to which Sir James Chide smilingly invited her—­between himself and Mr. Bobbie.

Sir James, making a pretence of shutting his ears against the din, replied that he believed Mr. Forbes was protesting against the tyranny of Lady Niton in obliging him to go to church.

“She never enters a place of worship herself, but she insists that her young men friends shall go.—­Mr. Bobbie is putting his foot down!”

“Miss Mallory, let me get you some fish,” said Forbes, turning to her with a flushed and determined countenance.  “I have now vindicated the rights of man, and am ready to attend—­if you will allow me—­to the wants of woman.  Fish?—­or bacon?”

Diana made her choice, and the young man supplied her; then bristling with victory, and surrounded by samples of whatever food the breakfast-table afforded, he sat down to his own meal.  “No!” he said, with energy, addressing Diana.  “One must really draw the line.  The last Sunday Lady Niton took me to church, the service lasted an hour and three-quarters.  I am a High Churchman—­I vow I am—­an out-and-outer.  I go in for snippets—­and shortening things.  The man here is a dreadful old Erastian—­piles on everything you can pile on—­so I just felt it necessary to give Lady Niton notice.  To-morrow I have work for the department—­at home! Take my advice, Miss Mallory—­don’t go.”

“I’m not staying over Sunday,” smiled Diana.

The young man expressed his regret.  “I say,” he said, with a quick look round, “you didn’t think I was rude last night, did you?”

“Rude?  When?”

“In not listening.  I can’t listen when people talk politics.  I want to drown myself.  Now, if it was poetry—­or something reasonable.  You know the only things worth looking at—­in this beastly house”—­he lowered his voice—­“are the books in that glass bookcase.  It was Lady Lucy’s father—­old Lord Merston—­collected them.  Lady Lucy never looks at them.  Marsham does, I suppose—­sometimes.  Do you know Marsham well?”