sity she wrote her best,
convinced that the work was doomed to unpopularity, resolved that it
should be at least a victory in style. A fit of angry cynicism now
and then set her composing phrases as baits for the critics to quote,
condemnatory of the attractiveness of the work. Her mood was bad. In
addition, she found Whitmonby cool; he complained of the coolness of her
letter of adieu; complained of her leaving London so long. How could
she expect to be his Queen of the London Salon if she lost touch of the
topics? He made no other allusion. They were soon on amicable terms, at
the expense of flattering arts that she had not hitherto practised. But
Westlake revealed unimagined marvels of the odd corners of the masculine
bosom. He was the man of her circle the neatest in epigram, the widest
of survey, an Oriental traveller, a distinguished writer, and if not
personally bewitching, remarkably a gentleman of the world. He was
wounded; he said as much. It came to this: admitting that he had
no claims, he declared it to be unbearable for him to see another
preferred. The happier was unmentioned, and Diana scraped his wound by
rallying him. He repeated that he asked only to stand on equal terms
with the others; her preference of one was past his tolerance. She
told him that since leaving Lady Dunstane she had seen but Whitmonby,
Wilmers, and him. He smiled sarcastically, saying he had never had a
letter from her, except the formal one of invitation.

'Powers of blarney, have you forsaken a daughter of Erin?' cried Diana.
'Here is a friend who has a craving for you, and I talk sense to him. I
have written to none of my set since I last left London.'

She pacified him by doses of cajolery new to her tongue. She liked
him, abhorred the thought of losing any of her friends, so the cajoling
sentences ran until Westlake betrayed an inflammable composition, and
had to be put out, and smoked sullenly. Her resources were tried in
restoring him to reason. The months of absence from London appeared
to have transformed her world. Tonans was moderate. The great editor
rebuked her for her prolonged absence from London, not so much because
it discrowned her as Queen of the Salon, but candidly for its rendering
her service less to him. Everything she knew of men and affairs was to
him stale.

'How do you get to the secrets?' she asked.

'By sticking to the centre of them,' he said.

'But how do you manage to be in advance and act the p