First, stung by the pique
excited in her by the talk of the luncheon-table, she had let herself be
exploited and explored by Alicia Drake. She had not meant to tell her
secret, but somehow she had told it, simply to give herself importance
with this smart lady, and to feel her power over Diana. Then, it was no
sooner told than she was quickly conscious that she had given away an
advantage, which from a tactical point of view she had infinitely better
have kept; and that the command of the situation might have passed from
her to this girl whom Diana had supplanted. Furious with herself, she
had tried to swear Miss Drake to silence, only to be politely but rather
scornfully put aside.
Then the party had broken up. Mr. Birch had been offended by the absence
of the hostess, and had vouchsafed but a careless good-bye to Miss
Merton. The Roughsedges went off without asking her to visit them; and
as for the Captain, he was an odious young man. Since their departure,
Mrs. Colwood had neglected her, and now Diana's secret return, her long
talk with Mrs. Colwood, had filled the girl's cup of bitterness. She had
secured that day a thousand pounds for her family and herself; and at
the end of it, she merely felt that the day had been an abject and
intolerable failure! Did the fact that she so felt it bear strange
witness to the truth that at the bottom of her anger and her cruelty
there was a masked and distorted something which was not wholly
vile--which was, in fact, the nature's tribute to something nobler than
itself? That Diana shivered at and repulsed her was the hot-iron that
burned and seared.
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