He began to stumble and to make mistakes--gross elementary mistakes in
geography and fact--and there-with to lose his temper. Diana was upon
him in a moment--very cool and graceful--controlling herself well; and
it is probable that she would have won the day triumphantly but for the
sudden intervention of her host.
Oliver Marsham had been watching her with mingled amusement and
admiration. The slender figure held defiantly erect, the hands
close-locked on the knee, the curly head with the air of a Nike--he
could almost _see_ the palm branch in the hand, the white dress and the
silky hair, blown back by the blasts of victory!--appealed to a
rhetorical element in his nature always closely combined both with his
feelings and his ambitions. Headlong energy and partisanship--he was
enchanted to find how beautiful they could be, and he threw himself into
the discussion simply--at first--that he might prolong an emotion, might
keep the red burning on her lip and cheek. That blundering fellow Barton
should not have it all to himself!
But he was no sooner well in it than he too began to flounder. He rode
off upon an inaccurate telegram in a morning paper; Diana fell upon it
at once, tripped it up, exposed it, drove it from the field, while Mr.
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