As for myself--" He drew a long breath, which was again a sigh.
Then with a change of manner, and in a lighter tone: "I seem to have given myself away--to an enemy!" "Poor enemy!" [Illustration: "The man's pulses leaped anew".] He looked at her, half laughing, half anxious.
"Tell me!--last night--you thought me intolerant--overbearing ?" "I disliked being beaten," said Diana, candidly; "especially as it was only my ignorance that was beaten--not my cause." "Shall we begin again ?" Through his gayety, however, a male satisfaction in victory pierced very plainly.

Diana winced a little.
"No, no! I must go back to Captain Roughsedge first and get some new arguments!" "Roughsedge!" he said, in surprise.

"Roughsedge?
He never carried an argument through in his life!" Diana defended her new friend to ears unsympathetic.

Her defence, indeed, evoked from him a series of the same impatient, sarcastic remarks on the subject of the neighbors as had scandalized her the day before.

She fired up, and they were soon in the midst of another battle-royal, partly on the merits of particular persons and partly on a more general theme--the advantage or disadvantage of an optimist view of your fellow-creatures.
Marsham was, before long, hard put to it in argument, and very delicately and discreetly convicted of arrogance or worse.