A Jingo Viceroy and a Jingo press could only be stopped by disaster-- On the contrary, said Diana, we could not afford to be stopped by disaster.

Disaster must be retrieved.
Mr.Barton asked her--why?
Were we never to admit that we were in the wrong?
The Viceroy and his advisers, she declared, were not likely to be wrong.
And prestige had to be maintained.
At the word "prestige" the rugged face of the Labor member grew contemptuous and a little angry.

He dealt with it as he was accustomed to deal with it in Socialist meetings or in Parliament.

His touch in doing so was neither light nor conciliatory; the young lady, he thought, required plain speaking.
But so far from intimidating the young lady, he found in the course of a few more thrusts and parries that he had roused a by no means despicable antagonist.

Diana was a mere mouth-piece; but she was the mouth-piece of eye-witnesses; whereas Barton was the mouth-piece of his daily newspaper and a handful of partisan books written to please the political section to which he belonged.
He began to stumble and to make mistakes--gross elementary mistakes in geography and fact--and there-with to lose his temper.