Diana was upon him in a moment--very cool and graceful--controlling herself well; and it is probable that she would have won the day triumphantly but for the sudden intervention of her host.
Oliver Marsham had been watching her with mingled amusement and admiration.

The slender figure held defiantly erect, the hands close-locked on the knee, the curly head with the air of a Nike--he could almost _see_ the palm branch in the hand, the white dress and the silky hair, blown back by the blasts of victory!--appealed to a rhetorical element in his nature always closely combined both with his feelings and his ambitions.

Headlong energy and partisanship--he was enchanted to find how beautiful they could be, and he threw himself into the discussion simply--at first--that he might prolong an emotion, might keep the red burning on her lip and cheek.

That blundering fellow Barton should not have it all to himself! But he was no sooner well in it than he too began to flounder.

He rode off upon an inaccurate telegram in a morning paper; Diana fell upon it at once, tripped it up, exposed it, drove it from the field, while Mr.
Ferrier approved her from the background with a smiling eye and a quietly applauding hand.