"I thought it was settled."
"Well, as soon as I heard of the accident and Oliver's condition, I wondered to myself how long that young woman would keep it up. I have no doubt the situation gave her a disturbed night or two, Alicia never can have had: the smallest intention of spending her life, or the best years of it, in nursing a sick husband. On the other hand, money is money. So she went off to the Treshams', to see if there was no third course--that's how I read it."
"The Treshams'?--a visit?--since the accident?"
"Don't look so astonished, my dear. You don't know the Alicias of this world. But I admit we should be dull without them. There's a girl at the Feltons' who has just come down from the Treshams', and I wouldn't have missed her stories of Alicia for a great deal. She's been setting her cap, it appears, at Lord Philip. However" (Lady Niton chuckled) "there she's met her match."
"Rut they are engaged?" said Diana, in bewildered interrogation.
The little lady's laugh rang out--shrill and cracked--like the crow of a bantam.
"She and Lord Philip? Trust Lord Philip!"
"No, I didn't mean that!"
"She and Oliver? I've no doubt Oliver thinks--or thought--they were. What view he takes now, poor fellow, I'm sure I don't know. But I don't somehow think Alicia will be able to carry on the game indefinitely. Lady Lucy is losing patience."
Diana sat in silence. Lady Niton could not exactly decipher her. But she guessed at a conflict between a scrupulous or proud unwillingness to discuss the matter at all or hear it discussed, and some motive deeper still and more imperative.