’He does not see that unless I go through the fire there is no justification for this wretched character of mine!’ she exclaimed.  Truce, treaty, withdrawal, signified publicly pardon, not exoneration by any means; and now that she was in armour she had no dread of the public.  So she said.  Redworth’s being then engaged upon the canvass of a borough, added to the absurdity of his meddling with the dilemmas of a woman.  ’Dear me, Emma! think of stepping aside from the parliamentary road to entreat a husband to relent, and arrange the domestic alliance of a contrary couple!  Quixottry is agreeable reading, a silly performance.’  Lady Dunstane pleaded his friendship.  She had to quit the field where such darts were showering.

The first dinner-party was aristocratic, easy to encounter.  Lord and Lady Crane, Lady Pennon, Lord and Lady Esquart, Lord Larrian, Mr. and Mrs. Montvert of Halford Manor, Lady Singleby, Sir Walter Capperston friends, admirers of Diana; patrons, in the phrase of the time, of her father, were the guests.  Lady Pennon expected to be amused, and was gratified, for Diana had only to open her mouth to set the great lady laughing.  She petitioned to have Mrs. Warwick at her table that day week, because the marquis was dying to make her acquaintance, and begged to have all her sayings repeated to him; vowed she must be salt in the desert.  ‘And remember, I back you through thick and thin,’ said Lady Pennon.  To which Diana replied:  ’If I am salt in the desert, you are the spring’; and the old lady protested she must put that down for her book.  The witty Mrs. Warwick, of whom wit was expected, had many incitements to be guilty of cheap wit; and the beautiful Mrs. Warwick, being able to pass anything she uttered, gave good and bad alike, under the impulsion to give out something, that the stripped and shivering Mrs. Warwick might find a cover in applause.  She discovered the social uses of cheap wit; she laid ambushes for anecdotes, a telling form of it among a people of no conversational interlocution, especially in the circles depending for dialogue upon perpetual fresh supplies of scandal; which have plentiful crops, yet not sufficient.  The old dinner and supper tables at The Crossways furnished her with an abundant store; and recollection failing, she invented.  Irish anecdotes are always popular in England, as promoting, besides the wholesome shake of the sides, a kindly sense of superiority.  Anecdotes also are portable, unlike the lightning flash, which will not go into the pocket; they can be carried home, they are disbursable at other tables.  These were Diana’s weapons.  She was perforce the actress of her part.

In happier times, when light of heart and natural, her vogue had not been so enrapturing.  Doubtless Cleopatra in her simple Egyptian uniform would hardly have won such plaudits as her stress of barbaric Oriental splendours evoked for her on the swan and serpent Nile-barge—­not from posterity at least.  It is a terrible decree, that all must act who would prevail; and the more extended the audience, the greater need for the mask and buskin.