bout; for a few moments in her life, Diana could be still and
drift.

Whither? She was beginning to feel that the chafing of home, her
mother's driving and Will's courting, were becoming intolerable. Heart
and brain were strained and sore; if she could be still till she died,
Diana felt it to be the utmost limit of desirableness. She knew she was
not likely to die soon; brain and nerve might be strained, but they
were sound and whole; the full capacity for suffering, the unimpaired
energy for doing, were hers yet. And stillness was not likely to be
granted her. It was inexpressibly suitable to Diana's mood to sit quiet
in the sleigh and let Prince walk, and feel alone, and know that no one
could disturb her. A few small flakes of snow were beginning to flit
aimlessly about; their soft, wavering motion suggested nothing ruder
than that same purposeless drift towards which Diana's whole soul was
going out in yearning. If she had been in a German fairy tale, the
snow-flakes would have seemed to her spirits of peace. She welcomed
them. She put out her hand and caught two or three, and then brought
them close to look at them. The little fair crystals lay still on her
glove; it was too cold for them to melt. O to be like that!--thought
Diana,--cold and alone! But she was in no wise like that, but a living
human creature, warm at heart and quick in brain; in the midst of
humanity, obliged to fight out or watch through the life-battle, and
take blows and wounds as they came. Ah, she would not have minded the
blows or the wounds; she would have girded herself joyfully for the
struggle, were it twice as long or hard; but now,--there was nothing
left to fight for. The fight looked dreary. She longed to creep into a
corner, under some cover, and get rid of it all. No cover was in sight.
Diana knew, with the subtle instinct of power, that she was one of
those who must stand in the front ranks and take the responsibility of
her own and probably of others' destinies. She could not creep into a
corner and be still; there was work to do. And Diana never shirked
work. Vaguely, even now, as Prince walked along and she was revelling,
so to speak, in the loveliness and the peace of momentary immunity, she
began to look at the question, how and where her stand must be and her
work be done. Not as Will Flandin's wife, she thought! No, she could
never be that. But her mother would urge and press it; how much worry
of that sort could she stand,