Marion Vincent meanwhile had drawn nearer to Diana. Her strong
significant face wore a quiet smile; there was a friendly, even an
admiring penetration in the look with which she watched the young
prophetess of Empire and of War. As for Lady Lucy, she was silent, and
rather grave. In her secret mind she thought that young girls should not
be vehement or presumptuous. It was a misfortune that this pretty
creature had not been more reasonably brought up; a mother's hand had
been wanting. While not only Mr. Ferrier and Mrs. Colwood, sitting side
by side in the background, but everybody else present, in some measure
or degree, was aware of some play of feeling in the scene, beyond and
behind the obvious, some hidden forces, or rather, perhaps, some
emerging relation, which gave it significance and thrill. The duel was a
duel of brains--unequal at that; what made it fascinating was the
universal or typical element in the clash of the two personalities--the
man using his whole strength, more and more tyrannously, more and more
stubbornly--the girl resisting, flashing, appealing, fighting for dear
life, now gaining, now retreating--and finally overborne.
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