"So you came home to worry us?..." and the pleasure in his face was suddenly illuminating.
"Well, you have the pluck to hit back," and she looked at him with a flash of her eyes that made his senses reel a little. She threw her costly evening-cloak on to a chair, and pushed it a little aside with her foot, with a graceful action that displayed a dainty slipper and ankle, in no wise lost upon him. "I always hit back myself," she continued. "I've no sympathy with the 'other cheek' theory. I hit twice as hard as the attacker if possible. If Aunt Emily were here, I should say I give a dickens of a smack; but as she isn't, it is not worth while." She came forward with a mischievous gleam in her eyes. "Poor dear Aunt Emily! I sometimes have her conscience very much on my mind; but there ... I can bear it." And her comical enunciation in the poor lady's exact tones set both Meryl and van Hert off laughing.
The laughter was coming back to her own eyes too. When she entered they had been clouded, and her lips pouting. If they only knew it, she had been bored to tears at the party; bored utterly and completely, longing to be back on the verandah fighting a wordy, keen, good-tempered battle with van Hert; and she felt sure he would have gone when she returned. She had noticed he never stayed late when she was absent. But she was just in time. He had not gone, was only just going, and she perceived the face of each was tired and depressed.
"What have you been doing?" she rallied them. "You looked as if you had been intending to read the marriage service through together, and had read the funeral one by mistake; or possibly because it appealed to you more!... You both seemed doleful enough for anything."
"We missed you," Meryl said, simply. "William wanted to ask you about a new measure he is planning."
Van Hert said nothing, but he was looking at her unconsciously, with a light in his eyes that staggered her. Other men had looked at her with admiration, but this man had an expression that seemed to envelop her with himself. She felt throughout her pulses that he was all fire and eagerness and intensity, a strong, wilful, obstinate, fierce, virile personality that reached out mute, unconscious arms to her level-headed coolness. The fire in his eyes was only smouldering as yet, but it seemed to tell her that he was a fine-toned, brilliant instrument that she, and perhaps she only, could play upon as she liked, bringing forth both thundering chords and enveloping sweetness.
And in the sudden silence that had fallen upon the verandah, Diana knew that she liked to play, would always like to play, that with this man at least boredom would never fret her restless soul.
Then she plunged into words with him, and they sparred delightedly, and that work he had spoken of as awaiting him at home was left to take care of itself.
Later, Diana went outside on the verandah of her room and Meryl's and looked at the stars. The tables had turned utterly, but it was doubtful if either of them perceived it. Meryl went quietly to bed with only a few words, and either slept, or feigned sleep. Diana loitered on the verandah, and looked at the stars. She hardly knew why, only some strange half-consciousness was springing up inside her that made her restless. Somehow van Hert seemed to be gaining a hold over her. She could not gauge how, nor why, nor wherefore; but as she thought of his fine dark eyes in the starlight, with that luminous, glad expression when he looked at her, she had a sense of violent antipathy one moment, and of a gladness that made her blush secretly the next.
But within three days the date of the wedding was fixed, and all the papers paragraphed it far and wide.