it for a
course or two? I am no use till I have fed."

Diana laughed. They fell into a gossip about their neighbors. The plain
young man, with a shock of fair hair, a merry eye, a short chin, and the
spirits of a school-boy, sitting on Lady Niton's left, was, it seemed,
the particular pet and protege of that masterful old lady. Diana
remembered to have seen him at tea-time in Miss Drake's train. Lady
Niton, she was told, disliked her own sons, but was never tired of
befriending two or three young men who took her fancy. Bobbie Forbes was
a constant frequenter of her house on Campden Hill. "But he is no toady.
He tells her a number of plain truths--and amuses her guests. In return
she provides him with what she calls 'the best society'--and pushes his
interests in season and out of season. He is in the Foreign Office, and
she is at present manoeuvring to get him attached to the Special Mission
which is going out to Constantinople."

Diana glanced across the table, and in doing so met the eyes of Mr.
Bobbie Forbes, which laughed into hers--involuntarily--as much as to
say--"You see my plight?--ridiculous, isn't it?"

For Lady Niton was keeping a greedy conversational hold on both Marsham
and the young man, pouncing to right or left, as either showed a
disposition to escape from it--so that Forbes was violently withheld
from Alicia Drake, his rightful lady, and Marsham could engage in no
consecutive conversation with Diana.

"No escape for you!" smiled Mr. Frobisher, presently, observing the
position. "Lady Niton always devastates a dinner-party."

Diana protested that she was quite content. Might she assume, after the
fourth course, that his hunger was at least scotched and conversation
thrown open?

"I am fortified--thank you. Shall we go back to where we left off? You
had just accused me of ruining the country?"

"By easy stages," said Diana. "Wasn't that where we had come to? But
first--tell me, because it's all so puzzling!--do you and Mr.
Marsham agree?"

"A good deal. But he thinks _he_ can use _us_--which is his mistake."

"And Mr. Ferrier?"

Mr. Frobisher shook his head good-humoredly.

"No, no!--Ferrier is a Whig--the Whig of to-day, _bien entendu_, who is
a very different person from the Whig of yesterday--still, a Whig, an
individualist, a moderate man. He leads the Liberal party--and it is
changing all the time under his hand into something he dreads and
detests. The party can't do without him n