John was vaguely relieved. He glanced from her to the Gainsborough in the feathered hat that hung behind her. There was just a touch of resemblance under the unlikeness, a look in the pose of the head, in its curled and powdered wig that had reminded him of Di before. It reminded him of her more than ever now.
"Archie has been to Overleigh so constantly that I had not realized you had never seen it," said John. "But I suppose you were not grown up in those days; and since you grew up I have been abroad."
"Shall you go abroad again?"
"No. I have given up my secretaryship. I have come back to England for good."
"I am glad of that."
"I have been away too long as it is."
"Yes," said Di. "I have often thought so."
"Why?"
There was a pause.
"We are not represented," said Di proudly. She was speaking to one of her own family, and consequently she was not careful to choose her words. She had evidently no fear of being misunderstood by John. "We have always taken a place," she went on. "Not a particularly high one, but one of some kind. There was Amyas Tempest the cavalier general, and John who was with Charles of Bourbon at the sacking of Rome; and there were judges and admirals. Not that that is much when one looks at other families, the Cecils, for instance, but still they were always among the men of the day. And then our great-grandfather who lies in Westminster Abbey really was a great man. I was reading his life over again the other day. I suppose his son only passed muster because he was his son, and owing to his wife's ability. She amused old George IV., and made herself a power, and pushed her husband."