Diana, indeed, was well defended.  The more ill-humored Mrs. Fotheringham grew, the more Lady Niton enjoyed the evening and her own “Nitonisms.”  It was she who after dinner suggested the clearing of the hall and an impromptu dance—­on the ground that “girls must waltz for their living.”  And when Diana proved to be one of those in whom dancing is a natural and shining gift, so that even the gilded youths of the party, who were perhaps inclined to fight shy of Miss Mallory as “a girl who talked clever,” even they came crowding about her, like flies about a milk-pail—­it was Lady Niton who drew Isabel Fotheringham’s attention to it loudly and repeatedly.  It was she also who, at a pause in the dancing and at a hint from Mrs. Colwood, insisted on making Diana sing, to the grand piano which had been pushed into a corner of the hall.  And when the singing, helped by the looks and personality of the singer, had added to the girl’s success, Lady Niton sat fanning herself in reflected triumph, appealing to the spectators on all sides for applause.  The topics that Diana fled from, Lady Niton took up; and when Mrs. Fotheringham, bewildered by an avalanche of words, would say—­“Give me time, please, Lady Niton—­I must think!”—­Lady Niton would reply, coolly—­“Not unless you’re accustomed to it”; while she finally capped her misdeeds by insisting that it was no good to say Mr. Barton had a warm heart if he were without that much more useful possession—­a narrow mind.

Thus buttressed and befriended on almost all sides, Diana drank her cup of pleasure.  Once in an interval between two dances, as she passed on Oliver Marsham’s arm, close to Lady Lucy, that lady put up her frail old hand, and gently touched Diana’s.  “Do not overtire yourself, my dear!” she said, with effusion; and Oliver, looking down, knew very well what his mother’s rare effusion meant, if Diana did not.  On several occasions Mr. Perrier sought her out, with every mark of flattering attention, while it often seemed to Diana as if the protecting kindness of Sir James Chide was never far away.  In her white ingenue’s dress she was an embodiment of youth, simplicity, and joy, such as perhaps our grandmothers knew more commonly than we, in our more hurried and complex day.  And at the same time there floated round her something more than youth—­something more thrilling and challenging than mere girlish delight—­an effluence, a passion, a “swell of soul,” which made this dawn of her life more bewitching even for its promise than for its performance.

For Marsham, too, the hours flew.  He was carried away, enchanted; he had eyes for no one, time for no one but Diana; and before the end of the evening the gossip among the Tallyn guests ran fast and free.  When at last the dance broke up, many a curious eye watched the parting between Marsham and Diana; and in their bedroom on the top floor Lady Lucy’s two nieces sat up till the small hours discussing, first, the situation—­was Oliver really caught at last?—­and then, Alicia’s refusal to discuss it.  She had said bluntly that she was dog-tired—­and shut her door upon them.