The rest of the morning passed heavily. Diana wrote some letters, and devoutly hoped the rain would stop. In the intervals of her letter-writing, or her study of the clouds, she tried to make friends with Miss Drake and Mrs. Fotheringham. But neither effort came to good. Alicia, so expansive, so theatrical, so much the centre of the situation, when she chose, could be equally prickly, monosyllabic, and repellent when it suited her to be so. Diana talked timidly of dress, of London, and the Season. They were the subjects on which it seemed most natural to approach Miss Drake; Diana's attitude was inquiring and propitiatory. But Alicia could find none but careless or scanty replies till Madeleine Varley came up. Then Miss Drake's tongue was loosened. To her, as to an equal and intimate, she displayed her expert knowledge of shops and _modistes_, of "people" and their stories. Diana sat snubbed and silent, a little provincial outsider, for whom "seasons" are not made. Nor was it any better with Mrs. Fotheringham. At twelve o'clock that lady brought the London papers into the drawing-room. Further information had been received from the Afghan frontier. The English loss in the engagement already reported was greater than had been at first supposed; and Diana found the name of an officer she had known in India among the dead. As she pondered the telegram, the tears in her eyes, she heard Mrs. Fotheringham describe the news as "on the whole very satisfactory." The nation required the lesson. Whereupon Diana's tongue was loosed and would not be quieted. She dwelt hotly on the "sniping," the treacheries, the midnight murders which had preceded the expedition, Mrs. Fotheringham listened to her with flashing looks, and suddenly she broke into a denunciation of war, the military spirit, and the ignorant and unscrupulous persons at home, especially women, who aid and abet politicians in violence and iniquity, the passion of which soon struck Diana dumb. Here was no honorable fight of equal minds. She was being punished for her advocacy of the night before, by an older woman of tyrannical temper, toward whom she stood in the relation of guest to host. It was in vain to look round for defenders. The only man present was Mr. Barton, who sat listening with ill-concealed smiles to what was going on, without taking part in it. Diana extricated herself with as much dignity as she could muster, but she was too young to take the matter philosophically. She went up-stairs burning with anger, the tears of hurt feeling in her eyes. It seemed to her that Mrs. Fotheringham's attack implied a personal dislike; Mr. Marsham's sister had been glad to "take it out of her." To this young cherished creature it was almost her first experience of the kind.