He returned to see
what was the matter.
* * * * *
He found Miss Mallory the centre of a circle of spectators and
listeners, engaged apparently in a three-cornered and very hot
discussion with Mr. Barton, the Socialist member, and Oliver Marsham.
Diana had entirely forgotten herself, her shyness, the strange house,
and all her alarms. If Lady Niton took nothing for granted at Tallyn,
that was not, it seemed, the case with John Barton. He, on the contrary,
took it for granted that everybody there was at least a good Radical,
and as stoutly opposed as himself to the "wild-cat" and "Jingo" policy
of the Government on the Indian frontier, where one of our perennial
little wars was then proceeding. News had arrived that afternoon of an
indecisive engagement, in which the lives of three English officers and
some fifty men of a Sikh regiment had been lost. Mr. Barton, in taking
up the evening paper, lying beside Diana, which contained the news, had
made very much the remark foretold by Captain Roughsedge in the
afternoon. It was, he thought, a pity the repulse had not been more
decisive--so as to show all the world into what a hornet's nest the
Government was going--"and a hornet's nest which will cost us half a
million to take before we've done.
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