Still the same poetical, combative, impulsive creature, with the deep soft voice! She pleased his senses; she stirred his mind; and he would have thrown himself into one of the old Rapallo arguments with her then and there but for the gad-fly at his elbow.
* * * * * Immediately after dinner Lady Niton possessed herself of Diana.

"Come here, please, Miss Mallory! I wish to make your acquaintance," Thus commanded, the laughing but rebellious Diana allowed herself to be led to a corner of the over-illuminated drawing-room.
"Well!"-- said Lady Niton, observing her--"so you have come to settle in these parts ?" Diana assented.
"What made you choose Brookshire ?" The question was enforced by a pair of needle-sharp eyes.

"There isn't a person worth talking to within a radius of twenty miles." Diana declined to agree with her; whereupon Lady Niton impatiently exclaimed: "Tut--tut! One might as well milk he-goats as talk to the people here.

Nothing to be got out of any of them.

Do you like conversation ?" "Immensely!" "Hum!--But mind you don't talk too much.