Diana clearly endeavored to show nothing more than a polite regret.

But in the half-laughing, half-forlorn requests she made to him for advice in certain practical matters which must be decided in his absence she betrayed herself; and Marsham found it amazingly sweet that she should do so.

He said eagerly that he and Lady Lucy must certainly come down to Tallyn every alternate Sunday, so that the various small matters he had made Diana intrust to him--the finding of a new gardener; negotiations with the Vavasours, connected with the cutting of certain trees--or the repairs of a ruinous gable of the house--should still be carried forward with all possible care and speed.

Whereupon Diana inquired how such things could possibly engage the time and thought of a politician in the full stream of Parliament.
"They will be much more interesting to me," said Marsham, in a low steady voice, "than anything I shall be doing in Parliament." Diana rose, in sudden vague terror--as though with the roar in her ears of rapids ahead--murmured some stammering thanks, walked across the room, lowered a lamp which was flaming, and recovered all her smiling self-possession.

But she talked no more of her own affairs.