He could neither chide her for a quixotic self-sacrifice, which might
never be admitted or allowed; nor protest, on Marsham's behalf, against
it, for he knew, in truth, nothing of the man; least of all could he
plead for himself. He could only sit, staring like a fool, tongue-tied;
till Diana, mastering, for his sake, the emotion to which, partly also
for his sake, she had given rein, gradually led the conversation back to
safer and cooler ground. All the little involuntary arts came in by
which a woman regains command of herself, and thereby of her companion.
Her hat tired her head; she removed it, and the beautiful hair
underneath, falling into confusion, must be put in its place by skilled
instinctive fingers, every movement answering to a similar
self-restraining effort in the mind within. She dried her tears; she
drew closer the black scarf round the shoulders of her white dress; she
straightened the violets at her belt--Muriel's mid-day gift--till he
beheld her, white and suffering indeed, but lovely and composed--queen
of herself.
She made him talk of his adventures, and he obeyed her, partly to help
her in the struggle he perceived, partly because in the
position--beneath and beyond all hope--to which she had reduced him, it
was the only way by which he could save anything out of the wreck.
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