Ferrier approved her from the background with a smiling eye and a
quietly applauding hand. Then Marsham quoted a speech in the
Indian Council.
Diana dismissed it with contempt, as the shaft of a _frondeur_
discredited by both parties. He fell back on Blue Books, and other
ponderosities--Barton by this time silent, or playing a clumsy chorus.
But if Diana was not acquainted with these things in the ore, so to
speak, she was more than a little acquainted with the missiles that
could be forged from them. That very afternoon Hugh Roughsedge had
pointed her to some of the best. She took them up--a little wildly
now--for her coolness was departing--and for a time Marsham could hardly
keep his footing.
A good many listeners were by now gathered round the disputants. Lady
Niton, wielding some noisy knitting needles by the fireside, was
enjoying the fray all the more that it seemed to be telling against
Oliver. Mrs. Fotheringham, on the other hand, who came up occasionally
to the circle, listened and went away again, was clearly seething with
suppressed wrath, and had to be restrained once or twice by her brother
from interfering, in a tone which would at once have put an end to a
duel he himself only wished to prolong.
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