Diana composed herself. She lifted her hands to a tress of hair that was unfastened, and put it in its place. Instinctively she straightened her belt, her white collar. Mrs. Colwood noticed that she was in black again, in one of the dresses of her mourning.
When Marsham turned, at the sound of the latch, to see Diana coming in, all the man's secret calculations and revolts were for the moment scattered and drowned in sheer pity and dismay. In a few short hours can grief so work on youth? He ran to her, but she held up a hand which arrested him half-way. Then she closed the door, but still stood near it, as though she feared to move, or speak, looking at him with her appealing eyes.
"Oliver!"
He held out his hands.
"My poor, poor darling!"
She gave a little cry, as though some tension broke. Her lips almost smiled; but she held him away from her.
"You're not--not ashamed of me?"
His protests were the natural, the inevitable protests that any man with red blood in his veins must need have uttered, brought face to face with so much sorrow and so much beauty. She let him make them, while her left hand gently stroked and caressed his right hand which held hers; yet all the time resolutely turning her face and her soft breast away, as though she dreaded to be kissed, to lose will and identity in the mere delight of his touch. And he felt, too, in some strange way, as though the blow that had fallen upon her had placed her at a distance from him; not disgraced--but consecrate.
"Will you please sit down and let us talk?" she said, after a moment, withdrawing herself.