any amount of
theatrical heroics, pathos, and clown-gabble. A panorama of scenes came
sweeping round her.

She was, however, harnessed to a different kind of vehicle, and had to
drag it. The sound of the house-door shutting, imagined perhaps, was a
fugitive distraction. Now to animate The Man of Two Minds!

He is courting, but he is burdened with the task of tasks. He has an
ideal of womanhood and of the union of couples: a delicacy extreme as
his attachment: and he must induce the lady to school herself to his
ideal, not allowing her to suspect him less devoted to her person; while
she, an exacting idol, will drink any quantity of idealization as long
as he starts it from a full acceptance of her acknowledged qualities.
Diana could once have tripped the scene along airily. She stared at
the opening sentence, a heavy bit of moralized manufacture, fit to yoke
beside that on her view of her bank-book.

'It has come to this--I have no head,' she cried.

And is our public likely to muster the slightest taste for comic
analysis that does not tumble to farce? The doubt reduced her whole MS.
to a leaden weight, composed for sinking. Percy's addiction to burlesque
was a further hindrance, for she did not perceive how her comedy could
be strained to gratify it.

There was a knock, and Danvers entered. 'You have apparently a liking
for late hours,' observed her mistress. 'I told you to go to bed.' 'It
is Mr. Dacier,' said Danvers. 'He wishes to see me?' 'Yes, ma'am. He
apologized for disturbing you.' 'He must have some good reason.' What
could it be! Diana's glass approved her appearance. She pressed the
black swell of hair above her temples, rather amazed, curious, inclined
to a beating of the heart.

CHAPTER XXXI. A CHAPTER CONTAINING GREAT POLITICAL NEWS AND THEREWITH AN
INTRUSION OF THE LOVE-GOD

Dacier was pacing about the drawing-room, as in a place too narrow for
him.

Diana stood at the door. 'Have you forgotten to tell me anything I ought
to know?'

He came up to her and shut the door softly behind her, holding her hand.
'You are near it. I returned.. But tell me first:--You were slightly
under a shadow this evening, dejected.'

'Did I show it?'

She was growing a little suspicious, but this cunning touch of
lover-like interest dispersed the shade.

'To me you did.'

'It was unpardonable to let it be seen.'

'No one else could have observed it.'

Her woman's heart was thrilled; for she had conc