Yet all through the day--and the evening--Diana had been conscious of this woman's presence, in a strange penetrating way, even when they had had least to do with each other. In the intervals of her own joyous progress she had been often aware of Miss Vincent sitting apart, sometimes with Mr. Frobisher, who was reading or talking to her, sometimes with Lady Lucy, and--during the dance--with John Barton. Barton might have been the Jeremiah or the Ezekiel of the occasion. He sat astride upon a chair, in his respectable workman's clothes, his eyes under their shaggy brows, his weather-beaten features and compressed lips expressing an ill-concealed contempt for the scene before him. It was rumored that he had wished to depart before dinner, having concluded his consultation with Mr. Ferrier, but that Mrs. Fotheringham had persuaded him to remain for the night. His presence seemed to make dancing a misdemeanor, and the rich house, with its services and appurtenances, an organized crime. But if his personality was the storm-point of the scene, charged with potential lightning, Marion Vincent's was the still small voice, without threat or bitterness, which every now and then spoke to a quick imagination like Diana's its message from a world of poverty and pain. And sometimes Diana had been startled by the perception that the message seemed to be specially for her. Miss Vincent's eyes followed her; whenever Diana passed near her, she smiled--she admired. But always, as it seemed to Diana, with a meaning behind the smile. Yet what that meaning might be the girl could not tell. At last, as she watched her, Marion Vincent looked up. "Mr. Barton would talk to me just now about the history of his own life. I suppose it was the dance and the supper excited him. He began to testify! Sometimes when he does that he is magnificent. He said some fine things to-night. But I am run down and couldn't stand it." Diana asked if Mr. Barton had himself gone through a great struggle with poverty. "The usual struggle. No more than thousands of others. Only in him it is vocal--he can reflect upon it.--You had an easy triumph over him last night," she added, with a smile, turning to her companion. "Who wouldn't have?" cried Diana. "What outrageous things he said!" "He doesn't know much about India--or the Colonies. He hasn't travelled; he reads very little. He showed badly. But on his own subjects he is good enough. I have known him impress or convert the most unlikely people--by nothing but a bare sincerity. Just now--while the servants were handing champagne--he and I were standing a little way off under the gallery. His eyes are weak, and he can't bear the glare of all these lights. Suddenly he told me the story of his father's death."