Her voice faltered. And yet, unconsciously, she had drawn herself a little together and away.
Marsham began to give a somewhat confused and yet guarded account of his mother's state of mind, endeavoring to prepare her for the letter which might arrive on the morrow. He got up and moved about the room as he spoke, while Diana sat, looking at him, her lips trembling from time to time. Presently he mentioned Ferrier's name, and Diana started.
"Does he think it would do you harm--that you ought to give me up?"
"Not he! And if anybody can make my mother hear reason, it will be Ferrier."
"Lady Lucy believes it would injure you in Parliament?" faltered Diana.
"No, I don't believe she does. No sane person could."
"Then it's because--of the disgrace? Oliver!--perhaps--you ought to give me up?"
She breathed quick. It stabbed him to see the flush in her cheeks contending with the misery in her eyes. She could not pose, or play a part. What she could not hide from him was just the conflict between her love and her new-born shame. Before that scene on the hill there would have been her girlish dignity also to reckon with. But the greater had swallowed up the less; and from her own love--in innocent and simple faith--she imagined his.
So that when she spoke of his giving her up, it was not her pride that spoke, but only and truly her fear of doing him a hurt--by which she meant a hurt in public estimation or repute. The whole business side of the matter was unknown to her. She had never speculated on his circumstances, and she was constitutionally and rather proudly indifferent to questions of money. Vaguely, of course, she knew that the Marshams were rich and that Tallyn was Lady Lucy's. Beyond, she had never inquired.
This absence of all self-love in her attitude--together with her complete ignorance of the calculation in which she was involved--touched him sharply. It kept him silent about the money; it seemed impossible to speak of it. And yet all the time the thought of it clamored--perhaps increasingly--in his own mind.