Diana's eyes betrayed her curiosity; she seemed to be asking for clews in a strange world. Marsham apparently felt that nothing could be more agreeable than to guide her. He began to describe for her the life of such a woman of the people as Marion Vincent. An orphan at fourteen, earning her own living from the first; self-dependent, self-protected; the friend, on perfectly equal terms, of a group of able men, interested in the same social ideals as herself; living alone, in contempt of all ordinary conventions, now in Kensington or Belgravia, and now in a back street of Stepney, or Poplar, and equally at home and her own mistress in both; exacting from a rich employer the full market value of the services she rendered him, and refusing to accept the smallest gift or favor beyond; a convinced Socialist and champion of the poor, who had within the past twelve months, to Marsham's knowledge, refused an offer of marriage from a man of large income, passionately devoted to her, whom she liked--mainly, it was believed, because his wealth was based on sweated labor: such was the character sketched by Marsham for his neighbor in the intermittent conversation, which was all that Lady Niton allowed him. Diana listened silently, but inwardly her mind was full of critical reactions. Was this what Mr. Marsham most admired, his ideal of what a woman should be? Was he exalting, exaggerating it a little, by way of antithesis to those old-fashioned surroundings, that unreal atmosphere, as he would call it, in which, for instance, he had found her--Diana--at Rapallo--under her father's influence and bringing up? The notion spurred her pride as well as her loyalty to her father. She began to hold herself rather stiffly, to throw in a critical remark or two, to be a little flippant even, at Miss Vincent's expense. Homage so warm laid at the feet of one ideal was--she felt it--a disparagement of others; she stood for those others; and presently Marsham began to realize a hurtling of shafts in the air, an incipient battle between them. He accepted it with delight. Still the same poetical, combative, impulsive creature, with the deep soft voice! She pleased his senses; she stirred his mind; and he would have thrown himself into one of the old Rapallo arguments with her then and there but for the gad-fly at his elbow. * * * * * Immediately after dinner Lady Niton possessed herself of Diana. "Come here, please, Miss Mallory! I wish to make your acquaintance," Thus commanded, the laughing but rebellious Diana allowed herself to be led to a corner of the over-illuminated drawing-room. "Well!"--said Lady Niton, observing her--"so you have come to settle in these parts?" Diana assented. "What made you choose Brookshire?" The question was enforced by a pair of needle-sharp eyes. "There isn't a person worth talking to within a radius of twenty miles."