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Bobbie Forbes standing beside him was dwarfed to insignificance, and he seemed to be conscious of it, for he rose on his toes a little, involuntarily copying Marsham's attitude, and looking up at him. As the shooters departed, Forbes bringing up the rear, Lady Niton laid her wrinkled hand on his arm. "Never mind, Bobbie, never mind!" she smiled at him confidentially. "We can't all be six foot."
Very shyly the girl ventured; very stoically the victim, submitted. Whereupon, Bobbie subsided, sitting cross-legged on the floor, and a violent quarrel began immediately between him and Lady Niton on the subject of the part of London in which he and Ettie were to live.
She had aged rapidly since he had last seen her, and, in particular, a gray shadow had overspread the pink-and-white complexion which had so long preserved her good looks. Lady Niton gave a very audible "Whew!" to which she hastened to add: "Well, Lucy, what does it matter? Twenty-four is as good as two thousand." Lady Lucy roused herself a little.
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 suppose she's been starving herself, as usual?" Oliver's mother enjoyed an appetite as fastidious as her judgments on men and morals, and Lady Niton had a running quarrel with her on the subject. Alicia replied that it had been, indeed, unusually difficult of late to persuade Lady Lucy to eat. "The less you eat the less you may eat," said Lady Niton, with vigor.
No sharpness in the voice now! he was all eagerness to escort and serve his guests. He led them to the breakfast-room, which seemed to be in an uproar, caused apparently by Bobbie Forbes and Lady Niton, who were talking at each other across the table. "What is the matter?" asked Diana, as she slipped into a place to which Sir James Chide smilingly invited her between himself and Mr. Bobbie.
The door closed on Lady Lucy. Forgetting for an instant what had happened before her hostess entered, Elizabeth Niton, bristling with remarks, turned impetuously toward Forbes. He had gone back to first editions, and was whistling vigorously as he worked. With a start, Lady Niton recollected herself.
He hinted uncomfortably, in his conversations with Diana, at the long list of his obligations to Lady Niton money lent, influence exerted, services of many kinds spread over four or five years, ever since, after a chance meeting in a country-house, she had appointed herself his earthly, providence, and he an orphan of good family, with a small income and extravagant tastes had weakly accepted her bounties.
Bobbie looked admiringly at his companion, vowing to himself that she was worth fighting for. But his own heart was proof. For three months he had been engaged, sub rosa, to a penniless cousin. No one knew, least of all Lady Niton, who, in spite of her championship of Diana, would probably be furious when she did know.
She broke with him, and with his brothers who supported him. Now a childless widow, without ties and moderately rich, she was free to devote herself to her ideas. In former days she would have been a religious bigot of the first water; the bigotry was still there; only the subjects of it were changed. Lady Niton delighted in attacking her; yet was not without a certain respect for her.
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