And with a great and morbid impatience he shook the recollection from
him. The bustle of Whitehall, as he drove down it, was like wine in his
veins; the crowd and the gossip of the Central Lobby, as he pressed his
way through to the door of the House of Commons, had never been so full
of stimulus or savor. In this agreeable, exciting world he knew his
place; the relief was enormous; and, for a time, Marsham was
himself again.
* * * * *
Sir James Chide came in the late afternoon; and in her two hours with
him, Diana learned, from lips that spared her all they could, the
heart-breaking story of which Fanny had given her but the
crudest outlines.
The full story, and its telling, taxed the courage both of hearer and
speaker. Diana bore it, as it seemed to Sir James, with the piteous
simplicity of one in whose nature grief had no pretences to overcome.
The iron entered into her soul, and her quick imagination made her
torment. But her father had taught her lessons of self-conquest, and in
this first testing of her youth she did not fail. Sir James was
astonished at the quiet she was able to maintain, and touched to the
heart by the suffering she could not conceal.
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