I am really
gregarious--dreadfully fond of people!--and curious about them. And I
think, oddly enough, papa was too."

A question rose naturally to his lips, but was checked unspoken. He well
remembered Mr. Mallory at Portofino; a pleasant courteous man, evidently
by nature a man of the world, interested in affairs and in literature,
with all the signs on him of the English governing class. It was
certainly curious that he should have spent all those years in exile
with his child, in a remote villa on the Italian coast. Health, Marsham
supposed, or finance--the two chief motives of life. For himself, the
thought of Diana's childhood between the pine woods and the sea gave him
pleasure; it added another to the poetical and romantic ideas which she
suggested. There came back on him the plash of the waves beneath the
Portofino headland, the murmur of the pines, the fragrance of the
underwood. He felt the kindred between all these, and her maidenly
energy, her unspoiled beauty.

"One moment!" he said, as they began to cross the lawn. "Has my sister
attacked you yet?"

The smile with which the words were spoken could be heard though not
seen. Diana laughed, a little awkwardly.

"I am afraid Mrs. Fotheringham thinks me a child of blood and thunder! I
am so sorry!"

"If she presses you too hard, call me in. Isabel and I understand each
other."

Diana murmured something polite.

Mr. Frobisher meanwhile came to meet them with a remark upon the beauty
of the evening, and Alicia Drake followed.

"I expect you found it a horrid long way," she said to Diana. Diana
disclaimed fatigue.

"You came _so_ slowly, we thought you must be tired."

Something in the drawling manner and the slightly insolent expression
made the words sting. Diana hurried on to Marion Vincent's side. That
lady was leaning on a stick, and for the first time Diana saw that she
was slightly lame. She looked up with a pleasant smile and greeting; but
before they could move on across the ample drive, Mr. Frobisher
overtook them.

"Won't you take my arm?" he said, in a low voice.

Miss Vincent slipped her hand inside his arm, and rested on him. He
supported her with what seemed to Diana a tender carefulness, his head
bent to hers, while he talked and she replied.

Diana followed, her girl's heart kindling.

"Surely!--surely!--they are in love?--engaged?"

But no one else appeared to take any notice or made any remark.

Long did the memory of the