And when
the singing, helped by the looks and personality of the singer, had
added to the girl's success, Lady Niton sat fanning herself in reflected
triumph, appealing to the spectators on all sides for applause. The
topics that Diana fled from, Lady Niton took up; and when Mrs.
Fotheringham, bewildered by an avalanche of words, would say--"Give me
time, please, Lady Niton--I must think!"--Lady Niton would reply,
coolly--"Not unless you're accustomed to it"; while she finally capped
her misdeeds by insisting that it was no good to say Mr. Barton had a
warm heart if he were without that much more useful possession--a
narrow mind.
Thus buttressed and befriended on almost all sides, Diana drank her cup
of pleasure. Once in an interval between two dances, as she passed on
Oliver Marsham's arm, close to Lady Lucy, that lady put up her frail old
hand, and gently touched Diana's. "Do not overtire yourself, my dear!"
she said, with effusion; and Oliver, looking down, knew very well what
his mother's rare effusion meant, if Diana did not. On several
occasions Mr. Perrier sought her out, with every mark of flattering
attention, while it often seemed to Diana as if the protecting kindness
of Sir James Chide was never far away.
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