These melting moods, indeed, were rare.  But no one watching the two on this February evening could have failed to see in Diana signs of happiness, of a joyous and growing dependence, of something that refused to know itself, that masqueraded now as this feeling, now as that, yet was all the time stealing upon the sources of life, bewitching blood and brain.  Marsham lamented that in ten days he and his mother must be in town for the Parliamentary season.  Diana clearly endeavored to show nothing more than a polite regret.  But in the half-laughing, half-forlorn requests she made to him for advice in certain practical matters which must be decided in his absence she betrayed herself; and Marsham found it amazingly sweet that she should do so.  He said eagerly that he and Lady Lucy must certainly come down to Tallyn every alternate Sunday, so that the various small matters he had made Diana intrust to him—­the finding of a new gardener; negotiations with the Vavasours, connected with the cutting of certain trees—­or the repairs of a ruinous gable of the house—­should still be carried forward with all possible care and speed.  Whereupon Diana inquired how such things could possibly engage the time and thought of a politician in the full stream of Parliament.

“They will be much more interesting to me,” said Marsham, in a low steady voice, “than anything I shall be doing in Parliament.”

Diana rose, in sudden vague terror—­as though with the roar in her ears of rapids ahead—­murmured some stammering thanks, walked across the room, lowered a lamp which was flaming, and recovered all her smiling self-possession.  But she talked no more of her own affairs.  She asked him, instead, for news of Miss Vincent.

Marsham answered, with difficulty.  If there had been sudden alarm in her, there had been a sudden tumult of the blood in him.  He had almost lost his hold upon himself; the great words had been almost spoken.

But when the conversation had been once more guided into normal channels, he felt that he had escaped a risk.  No, no, not yet!  One false step—­one check—­and he might still find himself groping in the dark.  Better let himself be missed a little!—­than move too soon.  As to Roughsedge—­he had kept his eyes open.  There was nothing there.

So he gave what news of Marion Vincent he had to give.  She was still in Bethnal Green working at her inquiry, often very ill, but quite indomitable.  As soon as Parliament began she had promised to do some secretarial work for Marsham on two or three mornings a week.

“I saw her last week,” said Marsham.  “She always asks after you.”

“I am so glad!  I fell in love with her.  Surely”—­Diana hesitated—­“surely—­some day—­she will marry Mr. Frobisher?”

Marsham shook his head.

“I think she feels herself too frail.”

Diana remembered that little scene of intimacy—­of tenderness—­and Marsham’s words stirred about her, as it were, winds of sadness and renunciation.  She shivered under them a little, feeling, almost guiltily, the glow of her own life, the passion of her own hopes.