‘Do you still write verses, Tony?’

’I could about him.  At one part of the fight he thought he would be beaten.  He was overmatched in artillery, and it was a cavalry charge he thundered on them, riding across the field to give the word of command to the couple of regiments, riddled to threads, that gained the day.  That is life—­when we dare death to live!  I wonder at men, who are men, being anything but soldiers!  I told you, madre, my own Emmy, I forgave you for marrying, because it was a soldier.’

’Perhaps a soldier is to be the happy man.  But you have not told me a word of yourself.  What has been done with the old Crossways?’

’The house, you know, is mine.  And it’s all I have:  ten acres and the house, furnished, and let for less than two hundred a year.  Oh! how I long to evict the tenants!  They can’t have my feeling for the place where I was born.  They’re people of tolerably good connections, middling wealthy, I suppose, of the name of Warwick, and, as far as I can understand, they stick there to be near the Sussex Downs, for a nephew, who likes to ride on them.  I’ve a half engagement, barely legible, to visit them on an indefinite day, and can’t bear the idea of strangers masters in the old house.  I must be driven there for shelter, for a roof, some month.  And I could make a pilgrimage in rain or snow just to doat on the outside of it.  That’s your Tony.’

‘She’s my darling.’

’I hear myself speak!  But your voice or mine, madre, it’s one soul.  Be sure I am giving up the ghost when I cease to be one soul with you, dear and dearest!  No secrets, never a shadow of a deception, or else I shall feel I am not fit to live.  Was I a bad correspondent when you were in India?’

‘Pretty well.  Copious letters when you did write.’

’I was shy.  I knew I should be writing, to Emmy and another, and only when I came to the flow could I forget him.  He is very finely built; and I dare say he has a head.  I read of his deeds in India and quivered.  But he was just a bit in the way.  Men are the barriers to perfect naturalness, at least, with girls, I think.  You wrote to me in the same tone as ever, and at first I had a struggle to reply.  And I, who have such pride in being always myself!’

Two staring semi-circles had formed, one to front the Hero; the other the Beauty.  These half moons imperceptibly dissolved to replenish, and became a fixed obstruction.

‘Yes, they look,’ Diana made answer to Lady Dunstane’s comment on the curious impertinence.  She was getting used to it, and her friend had a gratification in seeing how little this affected her perfect naturalness.

‘You are often in the world—­dinners, dances?’ she said.

‘People are kind.’

‘Any proposals?’

‘Nibbles.’

‘Quite heart-free?’

‘Absolutely.’

Diana’s unshadowed bright face defied all menace of an eclipse.