If it hurts, Oliver will help me."
But she had been brought up in a school of reticence, and her loyalty to
her father and mother sealed her lips. That anxiety, that burden, nobody
must share with her but Oliver--and perhaps his mother; his mother, so
soon to be hers.
Muriel Colwood, watching her face, could hardly restrain herself. But
the moment for which her whole being was waiting in a tension scarcely
to be borne had not yet come. She chastened and rebuked her own dread.
They talked a little of the future. Diana, in a blessed fatigue, threw
herself back in her chair, and chattered softly, listening now and then
for the sounds of the piano in the room below, and evidently relieved
whenever, after a silence, fresh fragments from some comic opera of the
day, much belied in the playing, penetrated to the upper floor.
Meanwhile, neither of them spoke of Fanny Merton. Diana, with a laugh,
repeated Marsham's proposal for a six weeks' engagement. That was
absurd! But, after all, it could not be very long. She hoped Oliver
would be content to keep Beechcote. They could, of course, always spend
a good deal of time with Lady Lucy.
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