He became a guest at her London house, and his report of the domesticity there, and notably of the lord of the house, pleased Lady Dunstane more than her husband's.

He saw the kind of man accurately, as far as men are to be seen on the surface; and she could say assentingly, without anxiety: 'Yes, yes,' to his remarks upon Mr.Warwick, indicative of a man of capable head in worldly affairs, commonplace beside his wife.

The noble gentleman for Diana was yet unborn, they tacitly agreed.

Meantime one must not put a mortal husband to the fiery ordeal of his wife's deserts, they agreed likewise.
'You may be sure she is a constant friend,' Lady Dunstane said for his comfort; and she reminded herself subsequently of a shade of disappointment at his imperturbable rejoinder: 'I could calculate on it.' For though not at all desiring to witness the sentimental fit, she wished to see that he held an image of Diana:--surely a woman to kindle poets and heroes, the princes of the race; and it was a curious perversity that the two men she had moved were merely excellent, emotionless, ordinary men, with heads for business.

Elsewhere, out of England, Diana would have been a woman for a place in song, exalted to the skies.