But why this singularity--this eccentricity?
Miss Vincent wore the same dress of dark woollen stuff, garnished with white frills, in which she had appeared the night before, and her morning attire, as Mr.Frobisher had foretold, had consisted of a precisely similar garment, adorned with a straight collar instead of frills.

Surely a piece of acting!--of unnecessary self-assertion! Yet all through the day--and the evening--Diana had been conscious of this woman's presence, in a strange penetrating way, even when they had had least to do with each other.

In the intervals of her own joyous progress she had been often aware of Miss Vincent sitting apart, sometimes with Mr.Frobisher, who was reading or talking to her, sometimes with Lady Lucy, and--during the dance--with John Barton.
Barton might have been the Jeremiah or the Ezekiel of the occasion.

He sat astride upon a chair, in his respectable workman's clothes, his eyes under their shaggy brows, his weather-beaten features and compressed lips expressing an ill-concealed contempt for the scene before him.

It was rumored that he had wished to depart before dinner, having concluded his consultation with Mr.Ferrier, but that Mrs.Fotheringham had persuaded him to remain for the night.