Lady Dunstane called on her, ostensibly to let her know she had taken a house in town for the season, and in the course of the chat Mrs. Cramborne Wathin was invited to dinner.  ’You will meet my dear friend, Mrs. Warwick,’ she said, and the reply was:  ‘Oh, I have heard of her.’

The formal consultation with Mr. Cramborne Wathin ended in an agreement to accept Lady Dunstane’s kind invitation.

Considering her husband’s plenitude of old legal anecdotes, and her own diligent perusal of the funny publications of the day, that she might be on the level of the wits and celebrities she entertained, Mrs. Cramborne Wathin had a right to expect the leading share in the conversation to which she was accustomed.  Every honour was paid to them; they met aristocracy in the persons of Lord Larrian, of Lady Rockden, Colonel Purlby, the Pettigrews, but neither of them held the table for a moment; the topics flew, and were no sooner up than down; they were unable to get a shot.  They had to eat in silence, occasionally grinning, because a woman labouring under a stigma would rattle-rattle, as if the laughter of the company were her due, and decency beneath her notice.  Some one alluded to a dog of Mrs. Warwick’s, whereupon she trips out a story of her dog’s amazing intelligence.

‘And pray,’ said Mrs. Cramborne Wathin across the table, merely to slip in a word, ‘what is the name of this wonderful dog?’

‘His name is Leander,’ said Diana.

’Oh, Leander.  I don’t think I hear myself calling to a dog in a name of three syllables.  Two at the most.’

No, so I call Hero! if I want him to come immediately,’ said Diana, and the gentlemen, to Mrs. Cramborne Wathin’s astonishment, acclaimed it.  Mr. Redworth, at her elbow, explained the point, to her disgust. . .

That was Diana’s offence.

If it should seem a small one, let it be remembered that a snub was intended, and was foiled; and foiled with an apparent simplicity, enough to exasperate, had there been no laughter of men to back the countering stroke.  A woman under a cloud, she talked, pushed to shine; she would be heard, would be applauded.  Her chronicler must likewise admit the error of her giving way to a petty sentiment of antagonism on first beholding Mrs. Cramborne Wathin, before whom she at once resolved to be herself, for a holiday, instead of acting demurely to conciliate.  Probably it was an antagonism of race, the shrinking of the skin from the burr.  But when Tremendous Powers are invoked, we should treat any simple revulsion of our blood as a vice.  The Gods of this world’s contests demand it of us, in relation to them, that the mind, and not the instincts, shall be at work.  Otherwise the course of a prudent policy is never to invoke them, but avoid.