e, for the _tete-a-tete_ of
country walks. It was then that Diana seemed to be holding in her
girlish hands something very complex and rare; a nature not easily to be
understood by one so much younger. His extraordinary gifts, his
disinterested temper, his astonishing powers of work raised him in her
eyes to heroic stature. And then some very human weakness, some natural
vanity, such as wives love and foster in their husbands, but which, in
his case appeared merely forlorn and eccentric--some deep note of
loneliness--would touch her heart, and rouse her pity. He talked
generally with an amazing confidence, not untouched perhaps with
arrogance, of the political struggle before him; believed he should
carry the country with him, and impose his policy on a divided party.
Yet again and again, amid the flow of hopeful speculation, Diana became
aware, as on the first evening of Assisi, of some hidden and tragic
doubt, both of fate and of himself, some deep-rooted weariness, against
which the energy of his talk seemed to be perpetually reacting and
protesting. And the solitariness and meagreness of his life in all its
personal and domestic aspects appalled her. She saw him often as a great
man--a really great man--yet starved and shelterless--amid the storms
that were beating up around him.

The friendship between him and Chide appeared to be very close, yet not
a little surprising. They were old comrades in Parliament, and Chide was
in the main a whole-hearted supporter of Ferrier's policy and views;
resenting in particular, as Diana soon discovered, Marsham's change of
attitude. But the two men had hardly anything else in common. Ferrier
was an enormous reader, most variously accomplished; while his political
Whiggery was balanced by a restless scepticism in philosophy and
religion. For the rest he was an ascetic, even in the stream of London
life; he cared nothing for most of the ordinary amusements; he played a
vile hand at whist (bridge had not yet dawned upon a waiting world); he
drank no wine, and was contentedly ignorant both of sport and games.

Chide, on the other hand, was as innocent of books as Lord Palmerston.
All that was necessary for his career as a great advocate he could
possess himself of in the twinkling of an eye; his natural judgment and
acuteness were of the first order; his powers of eloquence among the
most famous of his time; but it is doubtful whether Lady Niton would
have found him much better inf