The Testing of Diana Mallory Part 3

"Well, I don't understand it," he said, slowly and candidly.

"Don't you even read the papers?" asked Diana, wondering.

He started.

"Why, I should think I do!" he cried. "I should rather think I do!

That's another thing altogether--that's not books."

"Then perhaps you read the debate last night?" She looked at him with a kindling eye.

"Of course I did--every word of it! Do you know what those Radical fellows are up to now? They'll never rest until we've lost the Khaibar--and then the Lord only knows what'll happen."

Diana flew into discussion--quick breath, red cheeks! Mrs. Colwood looked on amazed.

Presently both appealed to her, the Anglo-Indian. But she smiled and stammered--declining the challenge. Beside their eagerness, their pa.s.sion, she felt herself tongue-tied. Captain Roughsedge had seen two years' service on the Northwest Frontier; Diana had ridden through the Khaibar with her father and a Lieutenant-Governor. In both the sense of England's historic task as the guardian of a teeming India against onslaught from the north, had sunk deep, not into brain merely. Figures of living men, acts of heroism and endurance, the thought of English soldiers ambushed in mountain defiles, or holding out against Afridi hordes in lonely forts, dying and battling, not for themselves, but that the great mountain barrier might hold against the savagery of the north, and English honor and English power maintain themselves unscathed--these had mingled, in both, with the chivalry and the red blood of youth. The eyes of both had seen; the hearts of both had felt.

And now, in the English House of Commons, there were men who doubted and sneered about these things--who held an Afridi life dearer than an English one--who cared nothing for the historic task, who would let India go to-morrow without a pang!

Misguided recreants! But Mrs. Colwood, looking on, could only feel that had they never played their impish part, the winter afternoon for these two companions of hers would have been infinitely less agreeable.

For certainly denunication and argument became Diana--all the more that she was no "female franzy" who must have all the best of the talk; she listened--she evoked--she drew on, and drew out. Mrs. Colwood was secretly sure that this very modest and ordinarily stupid young man had never talked so well before, that his mother would have been astonished could she have beheld him. What had come to the young women of this generation! Their grandmothers cared for politics only so far as they advanced the fortunes of their lords--otherwise what was Hecuba to them, or they to Hecuba? But these women have minds for the impersonal. Diana was not talking to make an effect on Captain Roughsedge--that was the strange part of it. Hundreds of women can make politics serve the primitive woman's game; the "come hither in the ee" can use that weapon as well as any other. But here was an intellectual, a patriotic pa.s.sion, veritable, genuine, not feigned.

Well!--the spectator admitted it--unwillingly--so long as the debater, the orator, were still desirable, still lovely. She stole a glance at Captain Roughsedge. Was he, too, so unconscious of s.e.x, of opportunity?

Ah! _that_ she doubted! The young man played his part stoutly; flung back the ball without a break; but there were glances, and movements and expressions, which to this shrewd feminine eye appeared to betray what no scrutiny could detect in Diana--a pleasure within a pleasure, and thoughts behind thoughts. At any rate, he prolonged the walk as long as it could be prolonged; he accompanied them to the very door of their carriage, and would have delayed them there but that Diana looked at her watch in dismay.

"You'll hear plenty of that sort of stuff to-night!" he said, as he helped them to their wraps. "'Perish India!' and all the rest of it. All they'll mind at Tallyn will be that the Afridis haven't killed a few more Britishers."

Diana gave him a rather grave smile and bow as the carriage drove on.

Mrs. Colwood wondered whether the Captain's last remark had somehow offended her companion. But Miss Mallory made no reference to it.

Instead, she began to give her companion some preliminary information as to the party they were likely to find at Tallyn.

As Mrs. Colwood already knew, Mr. Oliver Marsham, member for the Western division of Brookshire, was young and unmarried. He lived with his mother, Lady Lucy Marsham, the owner of Tallyn Hall; and his widowed sister, Mrs. Fotheringham, was also a constant inmate of the house.

Mrs. Fotheringham was if possible more extreme in opinions than her brother, frequented platforms, had quarrelled with all her Conservative relations, including a family of stepsons, and supported Women's Suffrage. It was evident that Diana was steeling herself to some endurance in this quarter. As to the other guests whom they might expect, Diana knew little. She had heard that Mr. Ferrier was to be there--ex-Home Secretary, and now leader of the Opposition--and old Lady Niton. Diana retailed what gossip she knew of this rather famous personage, whom three-fourths of the world found insolent and the rest witty. "They say, anyway, that she can snub Mrs. Fotheringham," said Diana, laughing.

"You met them abroad?"

"Only Mr. Marsham and Lady Lucy. Papa and I were walking over the hills at Portofino. We fell in with him, and he asked us the way to San Fruttuoso. We were going there, so we showed him. Papa liked him, and he came to see us afterwards--several times. Lady Lucy came once."

"She is nice?"

"Oh yes," said Diana, vaguely, "she is quite beautiful for her age. You never saw such lovely hands. And so fastidious--so dainty! I remember feeling uncomfortable all the time, because I knew I had a tear in my dress, and my hair was untidy--and I was certain she noticed."

"It's all rather alarming," said Mrs. Colwood, smiling.

"No, no!"--Diana turned upon her eagerly. "They're very kind--very, very kind!"

The winter day was nearly gone when they reached their destination. But there was just light enough, as they stepped out of the carriage, to show a large modern building, built of red brick, with many gables and bow-windows, and a generally restless effect. As they followed the butler through the outer hall, a babel of voices made itself heard, and when he threw open the door into the inner hall, they found themselves ushered into a large party.

There was a pleased exclamation from a tall fair man standing near the fire, who came forward at once to meet them.

"So glad to see you! But we hoped for you earlier! Mother, here is Miss Mallory."

Lady Lucy, a woman of sixty, still slender and stately, greeted them kindly, Mrs. Colwood was introduced, and room was made for the new-comers in the circle round the tea-table, which was presided over by a lady with red hair and an eye-gla.s.s, who gave a hand to Diana, and a bow, or more precisely a nod, to Mrs. Colwood.

"I'm Oliver's sister--my name's Fotheringham. That's my cousin--Madeleine Varley. Madeleine, find me some cups! This is Mr.

Ferrier--Mr. Ferrier, Miss Mallory.--expect you know Lady Niton.--Sir James Chide, Miss Mallory.--Perhaps that'll do to begin with!" said Mrs.

Fotheringham, carelessly, glancing at a further group of people. "Now I'll give you some tea."

Diana sat down, very shy, and a little flushed. Mr. Marsham hovered about her, inducing her to loosen her furs, bringing her tea, and asking questions about her settlement at Beechcote. He showed also a marked courtesy to Mrs. Colwood, and the little widow, susceptible to every breath of kindness, formed the prompt opinion that he was both handsome and agreeable.

Oliver Marsham, indeed, was not a person to be overlooked. His height was about six foot three; and his long slender limbs and spare frame had earned him, as a lad, among the men of his father's works, the description of "two yards o' pump-waater, straight oop an' down." But in his thin lengthiness there was nothing awkward--rather a graceful readiness and vigor. And the head which surmounted this lightly built body gave to the whole personality the force and weight it might otherwise have missed. The hair was very thick and very fair, though already slightly grizzled. It lay in heavy curly ma.s.ses across a broad head, defining a strong brow above deeply set small eyes of a pale conspicuous blue. The nose, aquiline and large; the mouth large also, but thin-lipped and flexible; slight hollows in the cheeks, and a long, lantern jaw. The whole figure made an impression of ease, power, and self-confidence.

"So you like your old house?" he said, presently, to Diana, sitting down beside her, and dropping his voice a little.

"It suits me perfectly."

"I am certain the moat is rheumatic! But you will never admit it."

"I would, if it were true," she said, smiling.

"No!--you are much too romantic. You see, I remember our conversations."

"Did I never admit the truth?"

"You would never admit it _was_ the truth. And my difficulty was to find an arbiter between us."

Diana's face changed a little. He perceived it instantly.

"Your father was sometimes arbiter," he said, in a still lower tone--"but naturally he took your side. I shall always rejoice I had that chance of meeting him."

Diana said nothing, but her dark eyes turned on him with a soft friendly look. His own smiled in response, and he resumed:

"I suppose you don't know many of these people here?"

"Not any."

"I'm sure you'll like Mr. Ferrier. He is our very old friend--almost my guardian. Of course--on politics--you won't agree!"

"I didn't expect to agree with anybody here," said Diana, slyly.

He laughed.

"I might offer you Lady Niton--but I refrain. To-morrow I have reason to believe that two Tories are coming to dinner."

"Which am I to admire?--your liberality, or their courage?"

"I have matched them by two socialists. Which will you sit next?"