that was
assumed to sanction Mrs. Warwick's maid in the encouragement of her follower.
Miss Paynham sketched on, with her thoughts in her bosom: a damsel castigatingly
pursued by the idea of sex as the direct motive of every act of every person
surrounding her; deductively therefore that a certain form of the impelling
passion, mild or terrible, or capricious, or it might be less pardonable, was
unceasingly at work among the human couples up to decrepitude. And she too
frequently hit the fact to doubt her gift of reading into them. Mr. Dacier was
plain, and the state of young Mr. Rhodes; and the Scottish gentleman was at
least a vehement admirer. But she penetrated the breast of Mr. Thomas Redworth
as well, mentally tore his mask of friendship to shreds. He was kind indeed in
commissioning her to do the portrait. His desire for it, and his urgency to have
the features exactly given, besides the infrequency of his visits of late, when
a favoured gentleman was present, were the betraying signs. Deductively,
moreover, the lady who inspired the passion in numbers of gentlemen and set
herself to win their admiration with her lively play of dialogue, must be
coquettish; she could hold them only by coldness. Anecdotes, epigrams,
drolleries, do not bubble to the lips of a woman who is under an emotional
spell: rather they prove that she has the spell for casting. It suited Mr.
Dacier, Miss Paynham thought: it was cruel to Mr. Redworth; at whom, of all her
circle, the beautiful woman looked, when speaking to him, sometimes tenderly.
    »Beware the silent one of an assembly!« Diana had written. She did not think
of her words while Miss Paynham continued mutely sketching. The silent ones,
with much conversation around them, have their heads at work, critically
perforce; the faster if their hands are occupied; and the point they lean to do
is the pivot of their thoughts. Miss Paynham felt for Mr. Redworth.
    Diana was unaware of any other critic present than him she sought to
enliven, not unsuccessfully, notwithstanding his English objection to the pitch
of the converse she led, and a suspicion of effort to support it: - just a
doubt, with all her easy voluble run, of the possibility of naturalness in a
continuous cleverness. But he signified pleasure, and in pleasing him she was
happy: in the knowledge that she dazzled, was her sense of safety. Percy hated
scandal; he heard none. He wanted stirring, cheering; in her house he had it. He