On the Nile, in the winter of the year, Diana met the Hon. Percy Dacier.  He was introduced to her at Cairo by Redworth.  The two gentlemen had struck up a House of Commons acquaintanceship, and finding themselves bound for the same destination, had grown friendly.  Redworth’s arrival had been pleasantly expected.  She remarked on Dacier’s presence to Emma, without sketch or note of him as other than much esteemed by Lord and Lady Esquart.  These, with Diana, Redworth, Dacier, the German Eastern traveller Schweizerbarth, and the French Consul and Egyptologist Duriette, composed a voyaging party up the river, of which expedition Redworth was Lady Dunstane’s chief writer of the records.  His novel perceptiveness and shrewdness of touch made them amusing; and his tenderness to the Beauty’s coquettry between the two foreign rivals, moved a deeper feeling.  The German had a guitar, the Frenchman a voice; Diana joined them in harmony.  They complained apart severally of the accompaniment and the singer.  Our English criticized them apart; and that is at any rate to occupy a post, though it contributes nothing to entertainment.  At home the Esquarts had sung duets; Diana had assisted Redworth’s manly chest-notes at the piano.  Each of them declined to be vocal.  Diana sang alone for the credit of the country, Italian and French songs, Irish also.  She was in her mood of Planxty Kelly and Garryowen all the way.  ‘Madame est Irlandaise?’ Redworth heard the Frenchman say, and he owned to what was implied in the answering tone of the question.  ’We should be dull dogs without the Irish leaven!’ So Tony in exile still managed to do something for her darling Erin.  The solitary woman on her heights at Copsley raised an exclamation of, ’Oh! that those two had been or could be united!’ She was conscious of a mystic symbolism in the prayer.

She was not apprehensive of any ominous intervention of another.  Writing from Venice, Diana mentioned Mr. Percy Dacier as being engaged to an heiress; ’A Miss Asper, niece of a mighty shipowner, Mr. Quintin Manx, Lady Esquart tells me:  money fabulous, and necessary to a younger son devoured with ambition.  The elder brother, Lord Creedmore, is a common Nimrod, always absent in Hungary, Russia, America, hunting somewhere.  Mr. Dacier will be in the Cabinet with the next Ministry.’  No more of him.  A new work by Antonia was progressing.

The Summer in South Tyrol passed like a royal procession before young eyes for Diana, and at the close of it, descending the Stelvio, idling through the Valtelline, Como Lake was reached, Diana full of her work, living the double life of the author.  At Bellagio one afternoon Mr. Percy Dacier appeared.  She remembered subsequently a disappointment she felt in not beholding Mr. Redworth either with him or displacing him.  If engaged to a lady, he was not an ardent suitor; nor was he a pointedly complimentary acquaintance.  His enthusiasm was reserved for Italian scenery.