and parting, here is the friendliest you could have.
Only don't look rueful. My dear Arthur, spare me that, or I shall blame
myself horribly.'

His chance had gone, and he composed his face. No hope in speaking had
nerved him; merely the passion to speak. Diana understood the state,
and pitied the naturally modest young fellow, and chafed at herself as
a senseless incendiary, who did mischief right and left, from seeking
to shun the apparently inevitable. A sidethought intruded, that he would
have done his wooing poetically--not in the burly storm, or bull-Saxon,
she apprehended. Supposing it imperative with her to choose? She looked
up, and the bird of broader wing darkened the whole sky, bidding her
know that she had no choice.

Emma was requested to make Mr. Redworth acquainted with her story,
all of it:--'So that this exalted friendship of his may be shaken to a
common level. He has an unbearably high estimate of me, and it hurts me.
Tell him all; and more than even you have known:--but for his coming to
me, on the eve of your passing under the surgeon's hands, I should have
gone--flung the world my glove! A matter of minutes. Ten minutes later!
The train was to start for France at eight, and I was awaited. I have
to thank heaven that the man was one of those who can strike icily. Tell
Mr. Redworth what I say. You two converse upon every subject. One may
be too loftily respected--in my case. By and by--for he is a tolerant
reader of life and women, I think--we shall be humdrum friends of the
lasting order.'

Emma's cheeks were as red as Diana's. 'I fancy Tom Redworth has not much
to learn concerning any person he cares for,' she said. 'You like him? I
have lost touch of you, my dear, and ask.'

'I like him: that I can say. He is everything I am not. But now I am
free, the sense of being undeservedly over-esteemed imposes fetters, and
I don't like them. I have been called a Beauty. Rightly or other, I have
had a Beauty's career; and a curious caged beast's life I have found
it. Will you promise me to speak to him? And also, thank him for helping
Arthur Rhodes to a situation.'

At this, the tears fell from her. And so enigmatical had she grown to
Emma, that her bosom friend took them for a confessed attachment to the
youth.

Diana's wretched emotion shamed her from putting any inquiries whether
Redworth had been told. He came repeatedly, and showed no change of
face, always continuing in the form of huge hoveri