Her companion looked at her with amusement.
"What is odd? The combination of this house--with Barton--and Miss Vincent?"
"Why do they consent to come here?" she asked, wondering. "I suppose they despise the rich."
"Not at all! The poor things--the rich--can't help themselves--just yet. We come here--because we mean to use the rich."
"You!--you too?"
"A Fabian--" he said, smiling. "Which means that I am not in such a hurry as Barton."
"To ruin your country? You would only murder her by degrees?"--flashed Diana.
"Ah!--you throw down the glove?--so soon? Shall we postpone it for a course or two? I am no use till I have fed."
Diana laughed. They fell into a gossip about their neighbors. The plain young man, with a shock of fair hair, a merry eye, a short chin, and the spirits of a school-boy, sitting on Lady Niton's left, was, it seemed, the particular pet and protégé of that masterful old lady. Diana remembered to have seen him at tea-time in Miss Drake's train. Lady Niton, she was told, disliked her own sons, but was never tired of befriending two or three young men who took her fancy. Bobbie Forbes was a constant frequenter of her house on Campden Hill. "But he is no toady. He tells her a number of plain truths--and amuses her guests. In return she provides him with what she calls 'the best society'--and pushes his interests in season and out of season. He is in the Foreign Office, and she is at present manoeuvring to get him attached to the Special Mission which is going out to Constantinople."
Diana glanced across the table, and in doing so met the eyes of Mr. Bobbie Forbes, which laughed into hers--involuntarily--as much as to say--"You see my plight?--ridiculous, isn't it?"