njured him up most distastefully. True, she might have
made a more lamentable choice; a silly lordling, or a hero of scandals;
but if a gentlemanly official was of stabler mould, he failed to
harmonize quite so well with the idea of a creature like Tony. Perhaps
Mr. Redworth also failed in something. Where was the man fitly to mate
her! Mr. Redworth, however, was manly and trustworthy, of the finest
Saxon type in build and in character. He had great qualities, and his
excess of scrupulousness was most pitiable.

She read: 'The wisest thing a waif can do.' It bore a sound of
desperation. Avowedly Tony had accepted him without being in love. Or
was she masking the passion? No: had it been a case of love, she would
have written very differently to her friend.

Lady Dunstane controlled the pricking of the wound inflicted by Diana's
novel exercise in laconics where the fullest flow was due to tenderness,
and despatched felicitations upon the text of the initial line: 'Wonders
are always happening.' She wrote to hide vexation beneath surprise;
naturally betraying it. 'I must hope and pray that you have not been
precipitate.' Her curiosity to inspect the happiest of men, the most
genuine part of her letter, was expressed coldly.

When she had finished the composition she perused it, and did not
recognize herself in her language, though she had been so guarded to
cover the wound her Tony dealt their friendship--in some degree injuring
their sex. For it might now, after such an example, verily seem that
women are incapable of a translucent perfect confidence: their impulses,
caprices, desperations, tricks of concealment, trip a heart-whole
friendship. Well, to-morrow, if not to-day, the tripping may be
expected! Lady Dunstane resigned herself sadly to a lowered view of
her Tony's character. This was her unconscious act of reprisal. Her
brilliant beloved Tony, dazzling but in beauty and the gifted mind,
stood as one essentially with the common order of women. She wished
to be settled, Mr. Warwick proposed, and for the sake of living at
The Crossways she accepted him--she, the lofty scorner of loveless
marriages! who had said--how many times! that nothing save love excused
it! She degraded their mutual high standard of womankind. Diana was in
eclipse, full three parts. The bulk of the gentlemanly official she had
chosen obscured her. But I have written very carefully, thought Lady
Dunstane, dropping her answer into the post-bag.