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Title: The Patrician Author: Galsworthy, John Language: English As this book started as an ASCII text book there are no pictures available. *** Start of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Patrician" *** THE PATRICIAN By John Galsworthy CONTENTS PART I CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII PART II CHAPTER I CHAPTER II CHAPTER III CHAPTER IV CHAPTER V CHAPTER VI CHAPTER VII CHAPTER VIII CHAPTER IX CHAPTER X CHAPTER XI CHAPTER XII CHAPTER XIII CHAPTER XIV CHAPTER XV CHAPTER XVI CHAPTER XVII CHAPTER XVIII CHAPTER XIX CHAPTER XX CHAPTER XXI CHAPTER XXII CHAPTER XXIII CHAPTER XXIV CHAPTER XXV CHAPTER XXVI CHAPTER XXVII CHAPTER XXVIII CHAPTER XXIX CHAPTER XXX PART I CHAPTER I Light, entering the vast room\x97a room so high that its carved ceiling refused itself to exact scrutiny\x97travelled, with the wistful, cold curiosity of the dawn, over a fantastic storehouse of Time. Light, unaccompanied by the prejudice of human eyes, made strange revelation of incongruities, as though illuminating the dispassionate march of history. For in this dining hall\x97one of the finest in England\x97the Caradoc family had for centuries assembled the trophies and records of their existence. Round about this dining hall they had built and pulled down and restored, until the rest of Monkland Court presented some aspect of homogeneity. Here alone they had left virgin the work of the old quasi-monastic builders, and within it unconsciously deposited their souls. For there were here, meeting the eyes of light, all those rather touching evidences of man\x92s desire to persist for ever, those shells of his former bodies, the fetishes and queer proofs of his faiths, together with the remorseless demonstration of their treatment at the hands of Time. The annalist might here have found all his needed confirmations; the analyst from this material formed the due equation of high birth; the philosopher traced the course of aristocracy, from its primeval rise in crude strength or subtlety, through centuries of power, to picturesque decadence, and the beginnings of its last stand. Even the artist might here, perchance, have seized on the dry ineffable pervading spirit, as one visiting an old cathedral seems to scent out the constriction of its heart. From the legendary sword of that Welsh chieftain who by an act of high, rewarded treachery had passed into the favour of the conquering William, and received, with the widow of a Norman, many lands in Devonshire, to the Cup purchased for Geoffrey Caradoc; present Earl of Valleys, by subscription of his Devonshire tenants on the occasion of his marriage with the Lady Gertrude Semmering\x97no insignia were absent, save the family portraits in the gallery of Valleys House in London. There was even an ancient duplicate of that yellow tattered scroll royally, reconfirming lands and title to John, the most distinguished of all the Caradocs, who had unfortunately neglected to be born in wedlock, by one of those humorous omissions to be found in the genealogies of most old families. Yes, it was there, almost cynically hung in a corner; for this incident, though no doubt a burning question in the fifteenth century, was now but staple for an ironical little tale, in view of the fact that descendants of John\x92s \x91own\x92 brother Edmund were undoubtedly to be found among the cottagers of a parish not far distant. Light, glancing from the suits of armour to the tiger skins beneath them, brought from India but a year ago by Bertie Caradoc, the younger son, seemed recording, how those, who had once been foremost by virtue of that simple law of Nature which crowns the adventuring and strong, now being almost washed aside out of the main stream of national life, were compelled to devise adventure, lest they should lose belief in their own strength. The unsparing light of that first half-hour of summer morning recorded many other changes, wandering from austere tapestries to the velvety carpets, and dragging from the contrast sure proof of a common sense which denied to the present Earl and Countess the asceticisms of the past. And then it seemed to lose interest in this critical journey, as though longing to clothe all in witchery. For the sun had risen, and through the Eastern windows came pouring its level and mysterious joy. And with it, passing in at an open lattice, came a wild bee to settle among the flowers on the table athwart the Eastern end, used when there was only a small party in the house. The hours fled on silent, till the sun was high, and the first visitors came\x97three maids, rosy, not silent, bringing brushes. They passed, and were followed by two footmen\x97scouts of the breakfast brigade, who stood for a moment professionally doing nothing, then soberly commenced to set the table. Then came a little girl of six, to see if there were anything exciting\x97little Ann Shropton, child of Sir William Shropton by his marriage with Lady Agatha, and eldest daughter of the house, the only one of the four young Caradocs as yet wedded. She came on tiptoe, thinking to surprise whatever was there. She had a broad little face, and wide frank hazel eyes over a little nose that came out straight and sudden. Encircled by a loose belt placed far below the waist of her holland frock, as if to symbolize freedom, she seemed to think everything in life good fun. And soon she found the exciting thing. \x93Here\x92s a bumble bee, William. Do you think I could tame it in my little glass bog?\x94 \x93No, I don\x92t, Miss Ann; and look out, you\x92ll be stung!\x94 \x93It wouldn\x92t sting me.\x94 \x93Why not?\x94 \x93Because it wouldn\x92t.\x94 \x93Of course\x97if you say so\x97\x97\x94 \x93What time is the motor ordered?\x94 \x93Nine o\x92clock.\x94 \x93I\x92m going with Grandpapa as far as the gate.\x94 \x93Suppose he says you\x92re not?\x94 \x93Well, then I shall go all the same.\x94 \x93I see.\x94 \x93I might go all the way with him to London! Is Auntie Babs going?\x94 \x93No, I don\x92t think anybody is going with his lordship.\x94 \x93I would, if she were. William!\x94 \x93Yes.\x94 \x93Is Uncle Eustace sure to be elected?\x94 \x93Of course he is.\x94 \x93Do you think he\x92ll be a good Member of Parliament?\x94 \x93Lord Miltoun is very clever, Miss Ann.\x94 \x93Is he?\x94 \x93Well, don\x92t you think so?\x94 \x93Does Charles think so?\x94 \x93Ask him.\x94 \x93William!\x94 \x93Yes.\x94 \x93I don\x92t like London. I like here, and I like Cotton, and I like home pretty well, and I love Pendridny\x97and\x97I like Ravensham.\x94 \x93His lordship is going to Ravensham to-day on his way up, I heard say.\x94 \x93Oh! then he\x92ll see great-granny. William\x97\x97\x94 \x93Here\x92s Miss Wallace.\x94 From the doorway a lady with a broad pale patient face said: \x93Come, Ann.\x94 \x93All right! Hallo, Simmons!\x94 The entering butler replied: \x93Hallo, Miss Ann!\x94 \x93I\x92ve got to go.\x94 \x93I\x92m sure we\x92re very sorry.\x94 \x93Yes.\x94 The door banged faintly, and in the great room rose the busy silence of those minutes which precede repasts. Suddenly the four men by the breakfast fable stood back. Lord Valleys had come in. He approached slowly, reading a blue paper, with his level grey eyes divided by a little uncharacteristic frown. He had a tanned yet ruddy, decisively shaped face, with crisp hair and moustache beginning to go iron-grey\x97the face of a man who knows his own mind and is contented with that knowledge. His figure too, well-braced and upright, with the back of the head carried like a soldier\x92s, confirmed the impression, not so much of self-sufficiency, as of the sufficiency of his habits of life and thought. And there was apparent about all his movements that peculiar unconsciousness of his surroundings which comes to those who live a great deal in the public eye, have the material machinery of existence placed exactly to their hands, and never need to consider what others think of them. Taking his seat, and still perusing the paper, he at once began to eat what was put before him; then noticing that his eldest daughter had come in and was sitting down beside him, he said: \x93Bore having to go up in such weather!\x94 \x93Is it a Cabinet meeting?\x94 \x93Yes. This confounded business of the balloons.\x94 But the rather anxious dark eyes of Agatha\x92s delicate narrow face were taking in the details of a tray for keeping dishes warm on a sideboard, and she was thinking: \x93I believe that would be better than the ones I\x92ve got, after all. If William would only say whether he really likes these large trays better than single hot-water dishes!\x94 She contrived how-ever to ask in her gentle voice\x97for all her words and movements were gentle, even a little timid, till anything appeared to threaten the welfare of her husband or children: \x93Do you think this war scare good for Eustace\x92s prospects, Father?\x94 But her father did not answer; he was greeting a new-comer, a tall, fine-looking young man, with dark hair and a fair moustache, between whom and himself there was no relationship, yet a certain negative resemblance. Claud Fresnay, Viscount Harbinger, was indeed also a little of what is called the \x91Norman\x92 type\x97having a certain firm regularity of feature, and a slight aquilinity of nose high up on the bridge\x97but that which in the elder man seemed to indicate only an unconscious acceptance of self as a standard, in the younger man gave an impression at once more assertive and more uneasy, as though he were a little afraid of not chaffing something all the time. Behind him had come in a tall woman, of full figure and fine presence, with hair still brown\x97Lady Valleys herself. Though her eldest son was thirty, she was, herself, still little more than fifty. From her voice, manner, and whole personality, one might suspect that she had been an acknowledged beauty; but there was now more than a suspicion of maturity about her almost jovial face, with its full grey-blue eyes; and coarsened complexion. Good comrade, and essentially \x91woman of the world,\x92 was written on every line of her, and in every tone of her voice. She was indeed a figure suggestive of open air and generous living, endowed with abundant energy, and not devoid of humour. It was she who answered Agatha\x92s remark. \x93Of course, my dear, the very best thing possible.\x94 Lord Harbinger chimed in: \x93By the way, Brabrook\x92s going to speak on it. Did you ever hear him, Lady Agatha? \x91Mr. Speaker, Sir, I rise\x97and with me rises the democratic principle\x97\x97\x91\x94 But Agatha only smiled, for she was thinking: \x93If I let Ann go as far as the gate, she\x92ll only make it a stepping-stone to something else to-morrow.\x94 Taking no interest in public affairs, her inherited craving for command had resorted for expression to a meticulous ordering of household matters. It was indeed a cult with her, a passion\x97as though she felt herself a sort of figurehead to national domesticity; the leader of a patriotic movement. Lord Valleys, having finished what seemed necessary, arose. \x93Any message to your mother, Gertrude?\x94 \x93No, I wrote last night.\x94 \x93Tell Miltoun to keep\x97an eye on that Mr. Courtier. I heard him speak one day\x97he\x92s rather good.\x94 Lady Valleys, who had not yet sat down, accompanied her husband to the door. \x93By the way, I\x92ve told Mother about this woman, Geoff.\x94 \x93Was it necessary?\x94 \x93Well, I think so; I\x92m uneasy\x97after all, Mother has some influence with Miltoun.\x94 Lord Valleys shrugged his shoulders, and slightly squeezing his wife\x92s arm, went out. Though himself vaguely uneasy on that very subject, he was a man who did not go to meet disturbance. He had the nerves which seem to be no nerves at all\x97especially found in those of his class who have much to do with horses. He temperamentally regarded the evil of the day as quite sufficient to it. Moreover, his eldest son was a riddle that he had long given up, so far as women were concerned. Emerging into the outer hall, he lingered a moment, remembering that he had not seen his younger and favourite daughter. \x93Lady Barbara down yet?\x94 Hearing that she was not, he slipped into the motor coat held for him by Simmons, and stepped out under the white portico, decorated by the Caradoc hawks in stone. The voice of little Ann reached him, clear and high above the smothered whirring of the car. \x93Come on, Grandpapa!\x94 Lord Valleys grimaced beneath his crisp moustache\x97the word grandpapa always fell queerly on the ears of one who was but fifty-six, and by no means felt it\x97and jerking his gloved hand towards Ann, he said: \x93Send down to the lodge gate for this.\x94 The voice of little Ann answered loudly: \x93No; I\x92m coming back by myself.\x94 The car starting, drowned discussion. Lord Valleys, motoring, somewhat pathetically illustrated the invasion of institutions by their destroyer, Science. A supporter of the turf, and not long since Master of Foxhounds, most of whose soul (outside politics) was in horses, he had been, as it were, compelled by common sense, not only to tolerate, but to take up and even press forward the cause of their supplanters. His instinct of self-preservation was secretly at work, hurrying him to his own destruction; forcing him to persuade himself that science and her successive victories over brute nature could be wooed into the service of a prestige which rested on a crystallized and stationary base. All this keeping pace with the times, this immersion in the results of modern discoveries, this speeding-up of existence so that it was all surface and little root\x97the increasing volatility, cosmopolitanism, and even commercialism of his life, on which he rather prided himself as a man of the world\x97was, with a secrecy too deep for his perception, cutting at the aloofness logically demanded of one in his position. Stubborn, and not spiritually subtle, though by no means dull in practical matters, he was resolutely letting the waters bear him on, holding the tiller firmly, without perceiving that he was in the vortex of a whirlpool. Indeed, his common sense continually impelled him, against the sort of reactionaryism of which his son Miltoun had so much, to that easier reactionaryism, which, living on its spiritual capital, makes what material capital it can out of its enemy, Progress. He drove the car himself, shrewd and self-contained, sitting easily, with his cap well drawn over those steady eyes; and though this unexpected meeting of the Cabinet in the Whitsuntide recess was not only a nuisance, but gave food for anxiety, he was fully able to enjoy the swift smooth movement through the summer air, which met him with such friendly sweetness under the great trees of the long avenue. Beside him, little Ann was silent, with her legs stuck out rather wide apart. Motoring was a new excitement, for at home it was forbidden; and a meditative rapture shone in her wide eyes above her sudden little nose. Only once she spoke, when close to the lodge the car slowed down, and they passed the lodge-keeper\x92s little daughter. \x93Hallo, Susie!\x94 There was no answer, but the look on Susie\x92s small pale face was so humble and adoring that Lord Valleys, not a very observant man, noticed it with a sort of satisfaction. \x93Yes,\x94 he thought, somewhat irrelevantly, \x93the country is sound at heart!\x94 CHAPTER II At Ravensham House on the borders of Richmond Park, suburban seat of the Casterley family, ever since it became usual to have a residence within easy driving distance of Westminster\x97in a large conservatory adjoining the hall, Lady Casterley stood in front of some Japanese lilies. She was a slender, short old woman, with an ivory-coloured face, a thin nose, and keen eyes half-veiled by delicate wrinkled lids. Very still, in her grey dress, and with grey hair, she gave the impression of a little figure carved out of fine, worn steel. Her firm, spidery hand held a letter written in free somewhat sprawling style: MONKLAND COURT, \x93DEVON. \x93MY DEAR, MOTHER, \x93Geoffrey is motoring up to-morrow. He\x92ll look in on you on the way if he can. This new war scare has taken him up. I shan\x92t be in Town myself till Miltoun\x92s election is over. The fact is, I daren\x92t leave him down here alone. He sees his \x91Anonyma\x92 every day. That Mr. Courtier, who wrote the book against War\x97rather cool for a man who\x92s been a soldier of fortune, don\x92t you think?\x97is staying at the inn, working for the Radical. He knows her, too\x97and, one can only hope, for Miltoun\x92s sake, too well\x97an attractive person, with red moustaches, rather nice and mad. Bertie has just come down; I must get him to have a talk with Miltoun, and see if he cant find out how the land lies. One can trust Bertie\x97he\x92s really very astute. I must say, that she\x92s quite a sweet-looking woman; but absolutely nothing\x92s known of her here except that she divorced her husband. How does one find out about people? Miltoun\x92s being so extraordinarily strait-laced makes it all the more awkward. The earnestness of this rising generation is most remarkable. I don\x92t remember taking such a serious view of life in my youth.\x94 Lady Casterley lowered the coronetted sheet of paper. The ghost of a grimace haunted her face\x97she had not forgotten her daughter\x92s youth. Raising the letter again, she read on: \x93I\x92m sure Geoffrey and I feel years younger than either Miltoun or Agatha, though we did produce them. One doesn\x92t feel it with Bertie or Babs, luckily. The war scare is having an excellent effect on Miltoun\x92s candidature. Claud Harbinger is with us, too, working for Miltoun; but, as a matter of fact, I think he\x92s after Babs. It\x92s rather melancholy, when you think that Babs isn\x92t quite twenty\x97still, one can\x92t expect anything else, I suppose, with her looks; and Claud is rather a fine specimen. They talk of him a lot now; he\x92s quite coming to the fore among the young Tories.\x94 Lady Casterley again lowered the letter, and stood listening. A prolonged, muffled sound as of distant cheering and groans had penetrated the great conservatory, vibrating among the pale petals of the lilies and setting free their scent in short waves of perfume. She passed into the hall; where, stood an old man with sallow face and long white whiskers. \x93What was that noise, Clifton?\x94 \x93A posse of Socialists, my lady, on their way to Putney to hold a demonstration; the people are hooting them. They\x92ve got blocked just outside the gates.\x94 \x93Are they making speeches?\x94 \x93They are talking some kind of rant, my lady.\x94 \x93I\x92ll go and hear them. Give me my black stick.\x94 Above the velvet-dark, flat-toughed cedar trees, which rose like pagodas of ebony on either side of the drive, the sky hung lowering in one great purple cloud, endowed with sinister life by a single white beam striking up into it from the horizon. Beneath this canopy of cloud a small phalanx of dusty, dishevelled-looking men and women were drawn up in the road, guarding, and encouraging with cheers, a tall, black-coated orator. Before and behind this phalanx, a little mob of men and boys kept up an accompaniment of groans and jeering. Lady Casterley and her \x91major-domo\x92 stood six paces inside the scrolled iron gates, and watched. The slight, steel-coloured figure with steel-coloured hair, was more arresting in its immobility than all the vociferations and gestures of the mob. Her eyes alone moved under their half-drooped lids; her right hand clutched tightly the handle of her stick. The speaker\x92s voice rose in shrill protest against the exploitation of \x91the people\x92; it sank in ironical comment on Christianity; it demanded passionately to be free from the continuous burden of \x91this insensate militarist taxation\x92; it threatened that the people would take things info their own hands. Lady Casterley turned her head: \x93He is talking nonsense, Clifton. It is going to rain. I shall go in.\x94 Under the stone porch she paused. The purple cloud had broken; a blind fury of rain was deluging the fast-scattering crowd. A faint smile came on Lady Casterley\x92s lips. \x93It will do them good to have their ardour damped a little. You will get wet, Clifton\x97hurry! I expect Lord Valleys to dinner. Have a room got ready for him to dress. He\x92s motoring from Monkland.\x94 CHAPTER III In a very high, white-panelled room, with but little furniture, Lord Valleys greeted his mother-in-law respectfully. \x93Motored up in nine hours, Ma\x92am\x97not bad going.\x94 \x93I am glad you came. When is Miltoun\x92s election?\x94 \x93On the twenty-ninth.\x94 \x93Pity! He should be away from Monkland, with that\x97anonymous woman living there.\x94 \x93Ah! yes; you\x92ve heard of her!\x94 Lady Casterley replied sharply: \x93You\x92re too easy-going, Geoffrey.\x94 Lord Valleys smiled. \x93These war scares,\x94 he said, \x93are getting a bore. Can\x92t quite make out what the feeling of the country is about them.\x94 Lady Casterley rose: \x93It has none. When war comes, the feeling will be all right. It always is. Give me your arm. Are you hungry?\x94... When Lord Valleys spoke of war, he spoke as one who, since he arrived at years of discretion, had lived within the circle of those who direct the destinies of States. It was for him\x97as for the lilies in the great glass house\x97impossible to see with the eyes, or feel with the feelings of a flower of the garden outside. Soaked in the best prejudices and manners of his class, he lived a life no more shut off from the general than was to be expected. Indeed, in some sort, as a man of facts and common sense, he was fairly in touch with the opinion of the average citizen. He was quite genuine when he said that he believed he knew what the people wanted better than those who prated on the subject; and no doubt he was right, for temperamentally he was nearer to them than their own leaders, though he would not perhaps have liked to be told so. His man-of-the-world, political shrewdness had been superimposed by life on a nature whose prime strength was its practicality and lack of imagination. It was his business to be efficient, but not strenuous, or desirous of pushing ideas to their logical conclusions; to be neither narrow nor puritanical, so long as the shell of \x91good form\x92 was preserved intact; to be a liberal landlord up to the point of not seriously damaging his interests; to be well-disposed towards the arts until those arts revealed that which he had not before perceived; it was his business to have light hands, steady eyes, iron nerves, and those excellent manners that have no mannerisms. It was his nature to be easy-going as a husband; indulgent as a father; careful and straightforward as a politician; and as a man, addicted to pleasure, to work, and to fresh air. He admired, and was fond of his wife, and had never regretted his marriage. He had never perhaps regretted anything, unless it were that he had not yet won the Derby, or quite succeeded in getting his special strain of blue-ticked pointers to breed absolutely true to type. His mother-in-law he respected, as one might respect a principle. There was indeed in the personality of that little old lady the tremendous force of accumulated decision\x97the inherited assurance of one whose prestige had never been questioned; who, from long immunity, and a certain clear-cut matter-of-factness, bred by the habit of command, had indeed lost the power of perceiving that her prestige ever could be questioned. Her knowledge of her own mind was no ordinary piece of learning, had not, in fact, been learned at all, but sprang full-fledged from an active dominating temperament. Fortified by the necessity, common to her class, of knowing thoroughly the more patent side of public affairs; armoured by the tradition of a culture demanded by leadership; inspired by ideas, but always the same ideas; owning no master, but in servitude to her own custom of leading, she had a mind, formidable as the two-edged swords wielded by her ancestors the Fitz-Harolds, at Agincourt or Poitiers\x97a mind which had ever instinctively rejected that inner knowledge of herself or of the selves of others; produced by those foolish practices of introspection, contemplation, and understanding, so deleterious to authority. If Lord Valleys was the body of the aristocratic machine, Lady Casterley was the steel spring inside it. All her life studiously unaffected and simple in attire; of plain and frugal habit; an early riser; working at something or other from morning till night, and as little worn-out at seventy-eight as most women of fifty, she had only one weak spot\x97and that was her strength\x97blindness as to the nature and size of her place in the scheme of things. She was a type, a force. Wonderfully well she went with the room in which they were dining, whose grey walls, surmounted by a deep frieze painted somewhat in the style of Fragonard, contained many nymphs and roses now rather dim; with the furniture, too, which had a look of having survived into times not its own. On the tables were no flowers, save five lilies in an old silver chalice; and on the wall over the great sideboard a portrait of the late Lord Casterley. She spoke: \x93I hope Miltoun is taking his own line?\x94 \x93That\x92s the trouble. He suffers from swollen principles\x97only wish he could keep them out of his speeches.\x94 \x93Let him be; and get him away from that woman as soon as his election\x92s over. What is her real name?\x94 \x93Mrs. something Lees Noel.\x94 \x93How long has she been there?\x94 \x93About a year, I think.\x94 \x93And you don\x92t know anything about her?\x94 Lord Valleys raised his shoulders. \x93Ah!\x94 said Lady Casterley; \x93exactly! You\x92re letting the thing drift. I shall go down myself. I suppose Gertrude can have me? What has that Mr. Courtier to do with this good lady?\x94 Lord Valleys smiled. In this smile was the whole of his polite and easy-going philosophy. \x93I am no meddler,\x94 it seemed to say; and at sight of that smile Lady Casterley tightened her lips. \x93He is a firebrand,\x94 she said. \x93I read that book of his against War\x97most inflammatory. Aimed at Grant-and Rosenstern, chiefly. I\x92ve just seen, one of the results, outside my own gates. A mob of anti-War agitators.\x94 Lord Valleys controlled a yawn. \x93Really? I\x92d no idea Courtier had any influence.\x94 \x93He is dangerous. Most idealists are negligible-his book was clever.\x94 \x93I wish to goodness we could see the last of these scares, they only make both countries look foolish,\x94 muttered Lord Valleys. Lady Casterley raised her glass, full of a bloody red wine. \x93The war would save us,\x94 she said. \x93War is no joke.\x94 \x93It would be the beginning of a better state of things.\x94 \x93You think so?\x94 \x93We should get the lead again as a nation, and Democracy would be put back fifty years.\x94 Lord Valleys made three little heaps of salt, and paused to count them; then, with a slight uplifting of his eyebrows, which seemed to doubt what he was going to say, he murmured: \x93I should have said that we were all democrats nowadays.... What is it, Clifton?\x94 \x93Your chauffeur would like to know, what time you will have the car?\x94 \x93Directly after dinner.\x94 Twenty minutes later, he was turning through the scrolled iron gates into the road for London. It was falling dark; and in the tremulous sky clouds were piled up, and drifted here and there with a sort of endless lack of purpose. No direction seemed to have been decreed unto their wings. They had met together in the firmament like a flock of giant magpies crossing and re-crossing each others\x92 flight. The smell of rain was in the air. The car raised no dust, but bored swiftly on, searching out the road with its lamps. On Putney Bridge its march was stayed by a string of waggons. Lord Valleys looked to right and left. The river reflected the thousand lights of buildings piled along her sides, lamps of the embankments, lanterns of moored barges. The sinuous pallid body of this great Creature, for ever gliding down to the sea, roused in his mind no symbolic image. He had had to do with her, years back, at the Board of Trade, and knew her for what she was, extremely dirty, and getting abominably thin just where he would have liked her plump. Yet, as he lighted a cigar, there came to him a queer feeling\x97as if he were in the presence of a woman he was fond of. \x93I hope to God,\x94 he thought, \x93nothing\x92ll come of these scares!\x94 The car glided on into the long road, swarming with traffic, towards the fashionable heart of London. Outside stationers\x92 shops, however, the posters of evening papers were of no reassuring order. \x91THE PLOT THICKENS.\x92 \x91MORE REVELATIONS.\x92 \x91GRAVE SITUATION THREATENED.\x92 And before each poster could be seen a little eddy in the stream of the passers-by\x97formed by persons glancing at the news, and disengaging themselves, to press on again. The Earl of Valleys caught himself wondering what they thought of it! What was passing behind those pale rounds of flesh turned towards the posters? Did they think at all, these men and women in the street? What was their attitude towards this vaguely threatened cataclysm? Face after face, stolid and apathetic, expressed nothing, no active desire, certainly no enthusiasm, hardly any dread. Poor devils! The thing, after all, was no more within their control than it was within the power of ants to stop the ruination of their ant-heap by some passing boy! It was no doubt quite true, that the people had never had much voice in the making of war. And the words of a Radical weekly, which as an impartial man he always forced himself to read, recurred to him. \x93Ignorant of the facts, hypnotized by the words \x91Country\x92 and \x91Patriotism\x92; in the grip of mob-instinct and inborn prejudice against the foreigner; helpless by reason of his patience, stoicism, good faith, and confidence in those above him; helpless by reason of his snobbery, mutual distrust, carelessness for the morrow, and lack of public spirit-in the face of War how impotent and to be pitied is the man in the street!\x94 That paper, though clever, always seemed to him intolerably hifalutin! It was doubtful whether he would get to Ascot this year. And his mind flew for a moment to his promising two-year-old Casetta; then dashed almost violently, as though in shame, to the Admiralty and the doubt whether they were fully alive to possibilities. He himself occupied a softer spot of Government, one of those almost nominal offices necessary to qualify into the Cabinet certain tried minds, for whom no more strenuous post can for the moment be found. From the Admiralty again his thoughts leaped to his mother-in-law. Wonderful old woman! What a statesman she would have made! Too reactionary! Deuce of a straight line she had taken about Mrs. Lees Noel! And with a connoisseur\x92s twinge of pleasure he recollected that lady\x92s face and figure seen that morning as he passed her cottage. Mysterious or not, the woman was certainly attractive! Very graceful head with its dark hair waved back from the middle over either temple\x97very charming figure, no lumber of any sort! Bouquet about her! Some story or other, no doubt\x97no affair of his! Always sorry for that sort of woman! A regiment of Territorials returning from a march stayed the progress of his car. He leaned forward watching them with much the same contained, shrewd, critical look he would have bent on a pack of hounds. All the mistiness and speculation in his mind was gone now. Good stamp of man, would give a capital account of themselves! Their faces, flushed by a day in the open, were masked with passivity, or, with a half-aggressive, half-jocular self-consciousness; they were clearly not troubled by abstract doubts, or any visions of the horrors of war. Someone raised a cheer \x91for the Terriers!\x92 Lord Valleys saw round him a little sea of hats, rising and falling, and heard a sound, rather shrill and tentative, swell into hoarse, high clamour, and suddenly die out. \x93Seem keen enough!\x94 he thought. \x93Very little does it! Plenty of fighting spirit in the country.\x94 And again a thrill of pleasure shot through him. Then, as the last soldier passed, his car slowly forged its way through the straggling crowd, pressing on behind the regiment\x97men of all ages, youths, a few women, young girls, who turned their eyes on him with a negligent stare as if their lives were too remote to permit them to take interest in this passing man at ease. CHAPTER IV At Monkland, that same hour, in the little whitewashed \x91withdrawing-room\x92 of a thatched, whitewashed cottage, two men sat talking, one on either side of the hearth; and in a low chair between them a dark-eyed woman leaned back, watching, the tips of her delicate thin fingers pressed together, or held out transparent towards the fire. A log, dropping now and then, turned up its glowing underside; and the firelight and the lamplight seemed so to have soaked into the white walls that a wan warmth exuded. Silvery dun moths, fluttering in from the dark garden, kept vibrating, like spun shillings, over a jade-green bowl of crimson roses; and there was a scent, as ever in that old thatched cottage, of woodsmoke, flowers, and sweetbriar. The man on the left was perhaps forty, rather above middle height, vigorous, active, straight, with blue eyes and a sanguine face that glowed on small provocation. His hair was very bright, almost red, and his fiery moustaches which descended to the level of his chin, like Don Quixote\x92s seemed bristling and charging. The man on the right was nearer thirty, evidently tall, wiry, and very thin. He sat rather crumpled, in his low armchair, with hands clasped round a knee; and a little crucified smile haunted the lips of his lean face, which, with its parchmenty, tanned, shaven cheeks, and deep-set, very living eyes, had a certain beauty. These two men, so extravagantly unlike, looked at each other like neighbouring dogs, who, having long decided that they are better apart, suddenly find that they have met at some spot where they cannot possibly have a fight. And the woman watched; the owner, as it were, of one, but who, from sheer love of dogs, had always stroked and patted the other. \x93So, Mr. Courtier,\x94 said the younger man, whose dry, ironic voice, like his smile, seemed defending the fervid spirit in his eyes; \x93all you say only amounts, you see, to a defence of the so-called Liberal spirit; and, forgive my candour, that spirit, being an importation from the realms of philosophy and art, withers the moment it touches practical affairs.\x94 The man with the red moustaches laughed; the sound was queer\x97at once so genial and so sardonic. \x93Well put!\x94 he said: \x93And far be it from me to gainsay. But since compromise is the very essence of politics, high-priests of caste and authority, like you, Lord Miltoun, are every bit as much out of it as any Liberal professor.\x94 \x93I don\x92t agree!\x94 \x93Agree or not, your position towards public affairs is very like the Church\x92s attitude towards marriage and divorce; as remote from the realities of life as the attitude of the believer in Free Love, and not more likely to catch on. The death of your point of view lies in itself\x97it\x92s too dried-up and far from things ever to understand them. If you don\x92t understand you can never rule. You might just as well keep your hands in your pockets, as go into politics with your notions!\x94 \x93I fear we must continue to agree to differ.\x94 \x93Well; perhaps I do pay you too high a compliment. After all, you are a patrician.\x94 \x93You speak in riddles, Mr. Courtier.\x94 The dark-eyed woman stirred; her hands gave a sort of flutter, as though in deprecation of acerbity. Rising at once, and speaking in a deferential voice, the elder man said: \x93We\x92re tiring Mrs. Noel. Good-night, Audrey, It\x92s high time I was off.\x94 Against the darkness of the open French window, he turned round to fire a parting shot. \x93What I meant, Lord Miltoun, was that your class is the driest and most practical in the State\x97it\x92s odd if it doesn\x92t save you from a poet\x92s dreams. Good-night!\x94 He passed out on to the lawn, and vanished. The young man sat unmoving; the glow of the fire had caught his face, so that a spirit seemed clinging round his lips, gleaming out of his eyes. Suddenly he said: \x93Do you believe that, Mrs. Noel?\x94 For answer Audrey Noel smiled, then rose and went over to the window. \x93Look at my dear toad! It comes here every evening!\x94 On a flagstone of the verandah, in the centre of the stream of lamplight, sat a little golden toad. As Miltoun came to look, it waddled to one side, and vanished. \x93How peaceful your garden is!\x94 he said; then taking her hand, he very gently raised it to his lips, and followed his opponent out into the darkness. Truly peace brooded over that garden. The Night seemed listening\x97all lights out, all hearts at rest. It watched, with a little white star for every tree, and roof, and slumbering tired flower, as a mother watches her sleeping child, leaning above him and counting with her love every hair of his head, and all his tiny tremors. Argument seemed child\x92s babble indeed under the smile of Night. And the face of the woman, left alone at her window, was a little like the face of this warm, sweet night. It was sensitive, harmonious; and its harmony was not, as in some faces, cold\x97but seemed to tremble and glow and flutter, as though it were a spirit which had found its place of resting. In her garden,\x97all velvety grey, with black shadows beneath the yew-trees, the white flowers alone seemed to be awake, and to look at her wistfully. The trees stood dark and still. Not even the night birds stirred. Alone, the little stream down in the bottom raised its voice, privileged when day voices were hushed. It was not in Audrey Noel to deny herself to any spirit that was abroad; to repel was an art she did not practise. But this night, though the Spirit of Peace hovered so near, she did not seem to know it. Her hands trembled, her cheeks were burning; her breast heaved, and sighs fluttered from her lips, just parted. CHAPTER V Eustace Cardoc, Viscount Miltoun, had lived a very lonely life, since he first began to understand the peculiarities of existence. With the exception of Clifton, his grandmother\x92s \x91majordomo,\x92 he made, as a small child, no intimate friend. His nurses, governesses, tutors, by their own confession did not understand him, finding that he took himself with unnecessary seriousness; a little afraid, too, of one whom they discovered to be capable of pushing things to the point of enduring pain in silence. Much of that early time was passed at Ravensham, for he had always been Lady Casterley\x92s favourite grandchild. She recognized in him the purposeful austerity which had somehow been omitted from the composition of her daughter. But only to Clifton, then a man of fifty with a great gravity and long black whiskers, did Eustace relieve his soul. \x93I tell you this, Clifton,\x94 he would say, sitting on the sideboard, or the arm of the big chair in Clifton\x92s room, or wandering amongst the raspberries, \x93because you are my friend.\x94 And Clifton, with his head a little on one side, and a sort of wise concern at his \x91friend\x92s\x92 confidences, which were sometimes of an embarrassing description, would answer now and then: \x93Of course, my lord,\x94 but more often: \x93Of course, my dear.\x94 There was in this friendship something fine and suitable, neither of these \x91friends\x92 taking or suffering liberties, and both being interested in pigeons, which they would stand watching with a remarkable attention. In course of time, following the tradition of his family, Eustace went to Harrow. He was there five years\x97always one of those boys a little out at wrists and ankles, who may be seen slouching, solitary, along the pavement to their own haunts, rather dusty, and with one shoulder slightly raised above the other, from the habit of carrying something beneath one arm. Saved from being thought a \x91smug,\x92 by his title, his lack of any conspicuous scholastic ability, his obvious independence of what was thought of him, and a sarcastic tongue, which no one was eager to encounter, he remained the ugly duckling who refused to paddle properly in the green ponds of Public School tradition. He played games so badly that in sheer self-defence his fellows permitted him to play without them. Of \x91fives\x92 they made an exception, for in this he attained much proficiency, owing to a certain windmill-like quality of limb. He was noted too for daring chemical experiments, of which he usually had one or two brewing, surreptitiously at first, and afterwards by special permission of his house-master, on the principle that if a room must smell, it had better smell openly. He made few friendships, but these were lasting. His Latin was so poor, and his Greek verse so vile, that all had been surprised when towards the finish of his career he showed a very considerable power of writing and speaking his own language. He left school without a pang. But when in the train he saw the old Hill and the old spire on the top of it fading away from him, a lump rose in his throat, he swallowed violently two or three times, and, thrusting himself far back into the carriage corner, appeared to sleep. At Oxford, he was happier, but still comparatively lonely; remaining, so long as custom permitted, in lodgings outside his College, and clinging thereafter to remote, panelled rooms high up, overlooking the gardens and a portion of the city wall. It was at Oxford that he first developed that passion for self-discipline which afterwards distinguished him. He took up rowing; and, though thoroughly unsuited by nature to this pastime, secured himself a place in his College \x91torpid.\x92 At the end of a race he was usually supported from his stretcher in a state of extreme extenuation, due to having pulled the last quarter of the course entirely with his spirit. The same craving for self-discipline guided him in the choice of Schools; he went out in \x91Greats,\x92 for which, owing to his indifferent mastery of Greek and Latin, he was the least fitted. With enormous labour he took a very good degree. He carried off besides, the highest distinctions of the University for English Essays. The ordinary circles of College life knew nothing of him. Not once in the whole course of his University career, was he the better for wine. He, did not hunt; he never talked of women, and none talked of women in his presence. But now and then he was visited by those gusts which come to the ascetic, when all life seemed suddenly caught up and devoured by a flame burning night and day, and going out mercifully, he knew not why, like a blown candle. However unsocial in the proper sense of the word, he by no means lacked company in these Oxford days. He knew many, both dons and undergraduates. His long stride, and determined absence of direction, had severely tried all those who could stomach so slow a pastime as walking for the sake of talking. The country knew him\x97though he never knew the country\x97from Abingdon to Bablock Hythe. His name stood high, too, at the Union, where he made his mark during his first term in a debate on a \x91Censorship of Literature\x92 which he advocated with gloom, pertinacity, and a certain youthful brilliance that might well have carried the day, had not an Irishman got up and pointed out the danger hanging over the Old Testament. To that he had retorted: \x93Better, sir, it should run a risk than have no risk to run.\x94 From which moment he was notable. He stayed up four years, and went down with a sense of bewilderment and loss. The matured verdict of Oxford on this child of hers, was \x93Eustace Miltoun! Ah! Queer bird! Will make his mark!\x94 He had about this time an interview with his father which confirmed the impression each had formed of the other. It took place in the library at Monkland Court, on a late November afternoon. The light of eight candles in thin silver candlesticks, four on either side of the carved stone hearth, illumined that room. Their gentle radiance penetrated but a little way into the great dark space lined with books, panelled and floored with black oak, where the acrid fragrance of leather and dried roseleaves seemed to drench the very soul with the aroma of the past. Above the huge fireplace, with light falling on one side of his shaven face, hung a portrait\x97painter unknown\x97of that Cardinal Caradoc who suffered for his faith in the sixteenth century. Ascetic, crucified, with a little smile clinging to the lips and deep-set eyes, he presided, above the bluefish flames of a log fire. Father and son found some difficulty in beginning. Each of those two felt as though he were in the presence of someone else\x92s very near relation. They had, in fact, seen extremely little of each other, and not seen that little long. Lord Valleys uttered the first remark: \x93Well, my dear fellow, what are you going to do now? I think we can make certain of this seat down here, if you like to stand.\x94 Miltoun had answered: \x93Thanks, very much; I don\x92t think so at present.\x94 Through the thin fume of his cigar Lord Valleys watched that long figure sunk deep in the chair opposite. \x93Why not?\x94 he said. \x93You can\x92t begin too soon; unless you think you ought to go round the world.\x94 \x93Before I can become a man of it?\x94 Lord Valleys gave a rather disconcerted laugh. \x93There\x92s nothing in politics you can\x92t pick up as you go along,\x94 he said. \x93How old are you?\x94 \x93Twenty-four.\x94 \x93You look older.\x94 A faint line, as of contemplation, rose between his eyes. Was it fancy that a little smile was hovering about Miltoun\x92s lips? \x93I\x92ve got a foolish theory,\x94 came from those lips, \x93that one must know the conditions first. I want to give at least five years to that.\x94 Lord Valleys raised his eyebrows. \x93Waste of time,\x94 he said. \x93You\x92d know more at the end of it, if you went into the House at once. You take the matter too seriously.\x94 \x93No doubt.\x94 For fully a minute Lord Valleys made no answer; he felt almost ruffled. Waiting till the sensation had passed, he said: \x93Well, my dear fellow, as you please.\x94 Miltoun\x92s apprenticeship to the profession of politics was served in a slum settlement; on his father\x92s estates; in Chambers at the Temple; in expeditions to Germany, America, and the British Colonies; in work at elections; and in two forlorn hopes to capture a constituency which could be trusted not to change its principles. He read much, slowly, but with conscientious tenacity, poetry, history, and works on philosophy, religion, and social matters. Fiction, and especially foreign fiction, he did not care for. With the utmost desire to be wide and impartial, he sucked in what ministered to the wants of his nature, rejecting unconsciously all that by its unsuitability endangered the flame of his private spirit. What he read, in fact, served only to strengthen those profounder convictions which arose from his temperament. With a contempt of the vulgar gewgaws of wealth and rank he combined a humble but intense and growing conviction of his capacity for leadership, of a spiritual superiority to those whom he desired to benefit. There was no trace, indeed, of the common Pharisee in Miltoun, he was simple and direct; but his eyes, his gestures, the whole man, proclaimed the presence of some secret spring of certainty, some fundamental well into which no disturbing glimmers penetrated. He was not devoid of wit, but he was devoid of that kind of wit which turns its eyes inward, and sees something of the fun that lies in being what you are. Miltoun saw the world and all the things thereof shaped like spires\x97even when they were circles. He seemed to have no sense that the Universe was equally compounded of those two symbols, whose point of reconciliation had not yet been discovered. Such was he, then, when the Member for his native division was made a peer. He had reached the age of thirty without ever having been in love, leading a life of almost savage purity, with one solitary breakdown. Women were afraid of him. And he was perhaps a little afraid of woman. She was in theory too lovely and desirable\x97the half-moon in a summer sky; in practice too cloying, or too harsh. He had an affection for Barbara, his younger sister; but to his mother, his grandmother, or his elder sister Agatha, he had never felt close. It was indeed amusing to see Lady Valleys with her first-born. Her fine figure, the blown roses of her face, her grey-blue eyes which had a slight tendency to roll, as though amusement just touched with naughtiness bubbled behind them; were reduced to a queer, satirical decorum in Miltoun\x92s presence. Thoughts and sayings verging on the risky were characteristic of her robust physique, of her soul which could afford to express almost all that occurred to it. Miltoun had never, not even as a child, given her his confidence. She bore him no resentment, being of that large, generous build in body and mind, rarely\x97never in her class\x97associated with the capacity for feeling aggrieved or lowered in any estimation, even its own. He was, and always had been, an odd boy, and there was an end of it! Nothing had perhaps so disconcerted Lady Valleys as his want of behaviour in regard to women. She felt it abnormal, just as she recognized the essential if duly veiled normality of her husband and younger son. It was this feeling which made her realize almost more vividly than she had time for, in the whirl of politics and fashion, the danger of his friendship with this lady to whom she alluded so discreetly as \x91Anonyma.\x92 Pure chance had been responsible for the inception of that friendship. Going one December afternoon to the farmhouse of a tenant, just killed by a fall from his horse, Miltoun had found the widow in a state of bewildered grief, thinly cloaked in the manner of one who had almost lost the power to express her feelings, and quite lost it in presence of \x91the gentry.\x92 Having assured the poor soul that she need have no fear about her tenancy, he was just leaving, when he met, in the stone-flagged entrance, a lady in a fur cap and jacket, carrying in her arms a little crying boy, bleeding from a cut on the forehead. Taking him from her and placing him on a table in the parlour, Miltoun looked at this lady, and saw that she was extremely grave, and soft, and charming. He inquired of her whether the mother should be told. She shook her head. \x93Poor thing, not just now: let\x92s wash it, and bind it up first.\x94 Together therefore they washed and bound up the cut. Having finished, she looked at Miltoun, and seemed to say: \x93You would do the telling so much better than I.\x94 He, therefore, told the mother and was rewarded by a little smile from the grave lady. From that meeting he took away the knowledge of her name, Audrey Lees Noel, and the remembrance of a face, whose beauty, under a cap of squirrel\x92s fur, pursued him. Some days later passing by the village green, he saw her entering a garden gate. On this occasion he had asked her whether she would like her cottage re-thatched; an inspection of the roof had followed; he had stayed talking a long time. Accustomed to women\x97over the best of whom, for all their grace and lack of affectation, high-caste life had wrapped the manner which seems to take all things for granted\x97there was a peculiar charm for Miltoun in this soft, dark-eyed lady who evidently lived quite out of the world, and had so poignant, and shy, a flavour. Thus from a chance seed had blossomed swiftly one of those rare friendships between lonely people, which can in short time fill great spaces of two lives. One day she asked him: \x93You know about me, I suppose?\x94 Miltoun made a motion of his head, signifying that he did. His informant had been the vicar. \x93Yes, I am told, her story is a sad one\x97a divorce.\x94 \x93Do you mean that she has been divorced, or\x97\x97\x94 For the fraction of a second the vicar perhaps had hesitated. \x93Oh! no\x97no. Sinned against, I am sure. A nice woman, so far as I have seen; though I\x92m afraid not one of my congregation.\x94 With this, Miltoun, in whom chivalry had already been awakened, was content. When she asked if he knew her story, he would not for the world have had her rake up what was painful. Whatever that story, she could not have been to blame. She had begun already to be shaped by his own spirit; had become not a human being as it was, but an expression of his aspiration.... On the third evening after his passage of arms with Courtier, he was again at her little white cottage sheltering within its high garden walls. Smothered in roses, and with a black-brown thatch overhanging the old-fashioned leaded panes of the upper windows, it had an air of hiding from the world. Behind, as though on guard, two pine trees spread their dark boughs over the outhouses, and in any south-west wind could be heard speaking gravely about the weather. Tall lilac bushes flanked the garden, and a huge lime-tree in the adjoining field sighed and rustled, or on still days let forth the drowsy hum of countless small dusky bees who frequented that green hostelry. He found her altering a dress, sitting over it in her peculiar delicate fashion\x97as if all objects whatsoever, dresses, flowers, books, music, required from her the same sympathy. He had come from a long day\x92s electioneering, had been heckled at two meetings, and was still sore from the experience. To watch her, to be soothed, and ministered to by her had never been so restful; and stretched out in a long chair he listened to her playing. Over the hill a Pierrot moon was slowly moving up in a sky the colour of grey irises. And in a sort of trance Miltoun stared at the burnt-out star, travelling in bright pallor. Across the moor a sea of shallow mist was rolling; and the trees in the valley, like browsing cattle, stood knee-deep in whiteness, with all the air above them wan from an innumerable rain as of moondust, falling into that white sea. Then the moon passed behind the lime-tree, so that a great lighted Chinese lantern seemed to hang blue-black from the sky. Suddenly, jarring and shivering the music, came a sound of hooting. It swelled, died away, and swelled again. Miltoun rose. \x93That has spoiled my vision,\x94 he said. \x93Mrs. Noel, I have something I want to say.\x94 But looking down at her, sitting so still, with her hands resting on the keys, he was silent in sheer adoration. A voice from the door ejaculated: \x93Oh! ma\x92am\x97oh! my lord! They\x92re devilling a gentleman on the green!\x94 CHAPTER VI When the immortal Don set out to ring all the bells of merriment, he was followed by one clown. Charles Courtier on the other hand had always been accompanied by thousands, who really could not understand the conduct of this man with no commercial sense. But though he puzzled his contemporaries, they did not exactly laugh at him, because it was reported that he had really killed some men, and loved some women. They found such a combination irresistible, when coupled with an appearance both vigorous and gallant. The son of an Oxfordshire clergyman, and mounted on a lost cause, he had been riding through the world ever since he was eighteen, without once getting out of the saddle. The secret of this endurance lay perhaps in his unconsciousness that he was in the saddle at all. It was as much his natural seat as office stools to other mortals. He made no capital out of errantry, his temperament being far too like his red-gold hair, which people compared to flames, consuming all before them. His vices were patent; too incurable an optimism; an admiration for beauty such as must sometimes have caused him to forget which woman he was most in love with; too thin a skin; too hot a heart; hatred of humbug, and habitual neglect of his own interest. Unmarried, and with many friends, and many enemies, he kept his body like a sword-blade, and his soul always at white heat. That one who admitted to having taken part in five wars should be mixing in a by-election in the cause of Peace, was not so inconsistent as might be supposed; for he had always fought on the losing side, and there seemed to him at the moment no side so losing as that of Peace. No great politician, he was not an orator, nor even a glib talker; yet a quiet mordancy of tongue, and the white-hot look in his eyes, never failed to make an impression of some kind on an audience. There was, however, hardly a corner of England where orations on behalf of Peace had a poorer chance than the Bucklandbury division. To say that Courtier had made himself unpopular with its matter-of-fact, independent, stolid, yet quick-tempered population, would be inadequate. He had outraged their beliefs, and roused the most profound suspicions. They could not, for the life of them, make out what he was at. Though by his adventures and his book, \x93Peace-a lost Cause,\x94 he was, in London, a conspicuous figure, they had naturally never heard of him; and his adventure to these parts seemed to them an almost ludicrous example of pure idea poking its nose into plain facts\x97the idea that nations ought to, and could live in peace being so very pure; and the fact that they never had, so very plain! At Monkland, which was all Court estate, there were naturally but few supporters of Miltoun\x92s opponent, Mr. Humphrey Chilcox, and the reception accorded to the champion of Peace soon passed from curiosity to derision, from derision to menace, till Courtier\x92s attitude became so defiant, and his sentences so heated that he was only saved from a rough handling by the influential interposition of the vicar. Yet when he began to address them he had felt irresistibly attracted. They looked such capital, independent fellows. Waiting for his turn to speak, he had marked them down as men after his own heart. For though Courtier knew that against an unpopular idea there must always be a majority, he never thought so ill of any individual as to suppose him capable of belonging to that ill-omened body. Surely these fine, independent fellows were not to be hoodwinked by the jingoes! It had been one more disillusion. He had not taken it lying down; neither had his audience. They dispersed without forgiving; they came together again without having forgotten. The village Inn, a little white building whose small windows were overgrown with creepers, had a single guest\x92s bedroom on the upper floor, and a little sitting-room where Courtier took his meals. The rest of the house was but stone-floored bar with a long wooden bench against the back wall, whence nightly a stream of talk would issue, all harsh a\x92s, and sudden soft u\x92s; whence too a figure, a little unsteady, would now and again emerge, to a chorus of \x91Gude naights,\x92 stand still under the ash-trees to light his pipe, then move slowly home. But on that evening, when the trees, like cattle, stood knee-deep in the moon-dust, those who came out from the bar-room did not go away; they hung about in the shadows, and were joined by other figures creeping furtively through the bright moonlight, from behind the Inn. Presently more figures moved up from the lanes and the churchyard path, till thirty or more were huddled there, and their stealthy murmur of talk distilled a rare savour of illicit joy. Unholy hilarity, indeed, seemed lurking in the deep tree-shadow, before the wan Inn, whence from a single lighted window came forth the half-chanting sound of a man\x92s voice reading out loud. Laughter was smothered, talk whispered. \x93He\x92m a-practisin\x92 his spaches.\x94 \x93Smoke the cunnin\x92 old vox out!\x94 \x93Red pepper\x92s the proper stuff.\x94 \x93See men sneeze! We\x92ve a-screed up the door.\x94 Then, as a face showed at the lighted window, a burst of harsh laughter broke the hush. He at the window was seen struggling violently to wrench away a bar. The laughter swelled to hooting. The prisoner forced his way through, dropped to the ground, rose, staggered, and fell. A voice said sharply: \x93What\x92s this?\x94 Out of the sounds of scuffling and scattering came the whisper: \x93His lordship!\x94 And the shade under the ash-trees became deserted, save by the tall dark figure of a man, and a woman\x92s white shape. \x93Is that you, Mr. Courtier? Are you hurt?\x94 A chuckle rose from the recumbent figure. \x93Only my knee. The beggars! They precious nearly choked me, though.\x94 CHAPTER VII Bertie Caradoc, leaving the smoking-room at Monkland Court that same evening,\x97on his way to bed, went to the Georgian corridor, where his pet barometer was hanging. To look at the glass had become the nightly habit of one who gave all the time he could spare from his profession to hunting in the winter and to racing in the summer.\x92 The Hon. Hubert Caradoc, an apprentice to the calling of diplomacy, more completely than any living Caradoc embodied the characteristic strength and weaknesses of that family. He was of fair height, and wiry build. His weathered face, under sleek, dark hair, had regular, rather small features, and wore an expression of alert resolution, masked by impassivity. Over his inquiring, hazel-grey eyes the lids were almost religiously kept half drawn. He had been born reticent, and great, indeed, was the emotion under which he suffered when the whole of his eyes were visible. His nose was finely chiselled, and had little flesh. His lips, covered by a small, dark moustache, scarcely opened to emit his speeches, which were uttered in a voice singularly muffled, yet unexpectedly quick. The whole personality was that of a man practical, spirited, guarded, resourceful, with great power of self-control, who looked at life as if she were a horse under him, to whom he must give way just so far as was necessary to keep mastery of her. A man to whom ideas were of no value, except when wedded to immediate action; essentially neat; demanding to be \x91done well,\x92 but capable of stoicism if necessary; urbane, yet always in readiness to thrust; able only to condone the failings and to compassionate the kinds of distress which his own experience had taught him to understand. Such was Miltoun\x92s younger brother at the age of twenty-six. Having noted that the glass was steady, he was about to seek the stairway, when he saw at the farther end of the entrance-hall three figures advancing arm-in-arm. Habitually both curious and wary, he waited till they came within the radius of a lamp; then, seeing them to be those of Miltoun and a footman, supporting between them a lame man, he at once hastened forward. \x93Have you put your knee out, sir? Hold on a minute! Get a chair, Charles.\x94 Seating the stranger in this chair, Bertie rolled up the trouser, and passed his fingers round the knee. There was a sort, of loving-kindness in that movement, as of a hand which had in its time felt the joints and sinews of innumerable horses. \x93H\x92m!\x94 he said; \x93can you stand a bit of a jerk? Catch hold of him behind, Eustace. Sit down on the floor, Charles, and hold the legs of the chair. Now then!\x94 And taking up the foot, he pulled. There was a click, a little noise of teeth ground together; and Bertie said: \x93Good man\x97shan\x92t have to have the vet. to you, this time.\x94 Having conducted their lame guest to a room in the Georgian corridor hastily converted to a bedroom, the two brothers presently left him to the attentions of the footman. \x93Well, old man,\x94 said Bertie, as they sought their rooms; \x93that\x92s put paid to his name\x97won\x92t do you any more harm this journey. Good plucked one, though!\x94 The report that Courtier was harboured beneath their roof went the round of the family before breakfast, through the agency of one whose practice it was to know all things, and to see that others partook of that knowledge, Little Ann, paying her customary morning visit to her mother\x92s room, took her stand with face turned up and hands clasping her belt, and began at once. \x93Uncle Eustace brought a man last night with a wounded leg, and Uncle Bertie pulled it out straight. William says that Charles says he only made a noise like this\x94\x97there was a faint sound of small chumping teeth: \x93And he\x92s the man that\x92s staying at the Inn, and the stairs were too narrow to carry him up, William says; and if his knee was put out he won\x92t be able to walk without a stick for a long time. Can I go to Father?\x94 Agatha, who was having her hair brushed, thought: \x93I\x92m not sure whether belts so low as that are wholesome,\x94 murmured: \x93Wait a minute!\x94 But little Ann was gone; and her voice could be heard in the dressing-room climbing up towards Sir William, who from the sound of his replies, was manifestly shaving. When Agatha, who never could resist a legitimate opportunity of approaching her husband, looked in, he was alone, and rather thoughtful\x97a tall man with a solid, steady face and cautious eyes, not in truth remarkable except to his own wife. \x93That fellow Courtier\x92s caught by the leg,\x94 he said. \x93Don\x92t know what your Mother will say to an enemy in the camp.\x94 \x93Isn\x92t he a freethinker, and rather\x97\x97\x94 Sir William, following his own thoughts, interrupted: \x93Just as well, of course, so far as Miltoun\x92s concerned, to have got him here.\x94 Agatha sighed: \x93Well, I suppose we shall have to be nice to him. I\x92ll tell Mother.\x94 Sir William smiled. \x93Ann will see to that,\x94 he said. Ann was seeing to that. Seated in the embrasure of the window behind the looking-glass, where Lady Valleys was still occupied, she was saying: \x93He fell out of the window because of the red pepper. Miss Wallace says he is a hostage\x97what does hostage mean, Granny?\x94 When six years ago that word had first fallen on Lady Valleys\x92 ears, she had thought: \x93Oh! dear! Am I really Granny?\x94 It had been a shock, had seemed the end of so much; but the matter-of-fact heroism of women, so much quicker to accept the inevitable than men, had soon come to her aid, and now, unlike her husband, she did not care a bit. For all that she answered nothing, partly because it was not necessary to speak in order to sustain a conversation with little Ann, and partly because she was deep in thought. The man was injured! Hospitality, of course\x97especially since their own tenants had committed the outrage! Still, to welcome a man who had gone out of his way to come down here and stump the country against her own son, was rather a tall order. It might have been worse, no doubt. If; for instance, he had been some \x91impossible\x92 Nonconformist Radical! This Mr. Courtier was a free lance\x97rather a well-known man, an interesting creature. She must see that he felt \x91at home\x92 and comfortable. If he were pumped judiciously, no doubt one could find out about this woman. Moreover, the acceptance of their \x91salt\x92 would silence him politically if she knew anything of that type of man, who always had something in him of the Arab\x92s creed. Her mind, that of a capable administrator, took in all the practical significance of this incident, which, although untoward, was not without its comic side to one disposed to find zest and humour in everything that did not absolutely run counter to her interests and philosophy. The voice of little Ann broke in on her reflections. \x93I\x92m going to Auntie Babs now.\x94 \x93Very well; give me a kiss first.\x94 Little Ann thrust up her face, so that its sudden little nose penetrated Lady Valleys\x92 soft curving lips.... When early that same afternoon Courtier, leaning on a stick, passed from his room out on to the terrace, he was confronted by three sunlit peacocks marching slowly across a lawn towards a statue of Diana. With incredible dignity those birds moved, as if never in their lives had they been hurried. They seemed indeed to know that when they got there, there would be nothing for them to do but to come back again. Beyond them, through the tall trees, over some wooded foot-hills of the moorland and a promised land of pinkish fields, pasture, and orchards, the prospect stretched to the far sea. Heat clothed this view with a kind of opalescence, a fairy garment, transmuting all values, so that the four square walls and tall chimneys of the pottery-works a few miles down the valley seemed to Courtier like a vision of some old fortified Italian town. His sensations, finding himself in this galley, were peculiar. For his feeling towards Miltoun, whom he had twice met at Mrs. Noel\x92s, was, in spite of disagreements, by no means unfriendly; while his feeling towards Miltoun\x92s family was not yet in existence. Having lived from hand to mouth, and in many countries, since he left Westminster School, he had now practically no class feelings. An attitude of hostility to aristocracy because it was aristocracy, was as incomprehensible to him as an attitude of deference. His sensations habitually shaped themselves in accordance with those two permanent requirements of his nature, liking for adventure, and hatred of tyranny. The labourer who beat his wife, the shopman who sweated his \x91hands,\x92 the parson who consigned his parishioners to hell, the peer who rode roughshod\x97all were equally odious to him. He thought of people as individuals, and it was, as it were, by accident that he had conceived the class generalization which he had fired back at Miltoun from Mrs. Noel\x92s window. Sanguine, accustomed to queer environments, and always catching at the moment as it flew, he had not to fight with the timidities and irritations of a nervous temperament. His cheery courtesy was only disturbed when he became conscious of some sentiment which appeared to him mean or cowardly. On such occasions, not perhaps infrequent, his face looked as if his heart were physically fuming, and since his shell of stoicism was never quite melted by this heat, a very peculiar expression was the result, a sort of calm, sardonic, desperate, jolly look. His chief feeling, then, at the outrage which had laid him captive in the enemy\x92s camp, was one of vague amusement, and curiosity. People round about spoke fairly well of this Caradoc family. There did not seem to be any lack of kindly feeling between them and their tenants; there was said to be no griping destitution, nor any particular ill-housing on their estate. And if the inhabitants were not encouraged to improve themselves, they were at all events maintained at a certain level, by steady and not ungenerous supervision. When a roof required thatching it was thatched; when a man became too old to work, he was not suffered to lapse into the Workhouse. In bad years for wool, or beasts, or crops, the farmers received a graduated remission of rent. The pottery-works were run on a liberal if autocratic basis. It was true that though Lord Valleys was said to be a staunch supporter of a \x91back to the land\x92 policy, no disposition was shown to encourage people to settle on these particular lands, no doubt from a feeling that such settlers would not do them so much justice as their present owner. Indeed so firmly did this conviction seemingly obtain, that Lord Valleys\x92 agent was not unfrequently observed to be buying a little bit more. But, since in this life one notices only what interests him, all this gossip, half complimentary, half not, had fallen but lightly on the ears of the champion of Peace during his campaign, for he was, as has, been said, but a poor politician, and rode his own horse very much his own way. While he stood there enjoying the view, he heard a small high voice, and became conscious of a little girl in a very shady hat so far back on her brown hair that it did not shade her; and of a small hand put out in front. He took the hand, and answered: \x93Thank you, I am well\x97and you?\x94 perceiving the while that a pair of wide frank eyes were examining his leg. \x93Does it hurt?\x94 \x93Not to speak of.\x94 \x93My pony\x92s leg was blistered. Granny is coming to look at it.\x94 \x93I see.\x94 \x93I have to go now. I hope you\x92ll soon be better. Good-bye!\x94 Then, instead of the little girl, Courtier saw a tall and rather florid woman regarding him with a sort of quizzical dignity. She wore a stiffish fawn-coloured dress that seemed to be cut a little too tight round her substantial hips, for it quite neglected to embrace her knees. She had on no hat, no gloves, no ornaments, except the rings on her fingers, and a little jewelled watch in a leather bracelet on her wrist. There was, indeed, about her whole figure an air of almost professional escape from finery. Stretching out a well-shaped but not small hand, she said: \x93I most heartily apologize to you, Mr. Courtier.\x94 \x93Not at all.\x94 \x93I do hope you\x92re comfortable. Have they given you everything you want?\x94 \x93More than everything.\x94 \x93It really was disgraceful! However it\x92s brought us the pleasure of making your acquaintance. I\x92ve read your book, of course.\x94 To Courtier it seemed that on this lady\x92s face had come a look which seemed to say: Yes, very clever and amusing, quite enjoyable! But the ideas\x97\x97What? You know very well they won\x92t do\x97in fact they mustn\x92t do! \x93That\x92s very nice of you.\x94 But into Lady Valleys\x92 answer, \x93I don\x92t agree with it a bit, you know!\x94 there had crept a touch of asperity, as though she knew that he had smiled inside. \x93What we want preached in these days are the warlike virtues\x97especially by a warrior.\x94 \x93Believe me, Lady Valleys, the warlike virtues are best left to men of more virgin imagination.\x94 He received a quick look, and the words: \x93Anyway, I\x92m sure you don\x92t care a rap for politics. You know Mrs. Lees Noel, don\x92t you? What a pretty woman she is!\x94 But as she spoke Courtier saw a young girl coming along the terrace. She had evidently been riding, for she wore high boots and a skirt which had enabled her to sit astride. Her eyes were blue, and her hair\x97the colour of beech-leaves in autumn with the sun shining through\x97was coiled up tight under a small soft hat. She was tall, and moved towards them like one endowed with great length from the hip joint to the knee. Joy of life, serene, unconscious vigour, seemed to radiate from her whole face and figure. At Lady Valleys\x92 words: \x93Ah, Babs! My daughter Barbara\x97Mr. Courtier,\x94 he put out his hand, received within it some gauntleted fingers held out with a smile, and heard her say: \x93Miltoun\x92s gone up to Town, Mother; I was going to motor in to Bucklandbury with a message he gave me; so I can fetch Granny out from the station:\x94 \x93You had better take Ann, or she\x92ll make our lives a burden; and perhaps Mr. Courtier would like an airing. Is your knee fit, do you think?\x94 Glancing at the apparition, Courtier replied: \x93It is.\x94 Never since the age of seven had he been able to look on feminine beauty without a sense of warmth and faint excitement; and seeing now perhaps the most beautiful girl he had ever beheld, he desired to be with her wherever she might be going. There was too something very fascinating in the way she smiled, as if she had a little seen through his sentiments. \x93Well then,\x94 she said, \x93we\x92d better look for Ann.\x94 After short but vigorous search little Ann was found\x97in the car, instinct having told her of a forward movement in which it was her duty to take part. And soon they had started, Ann between them in that peculiar state of silence to which she became liable when really interested. From the Monkland estate, flowered, lawned, and timbered, to the open moor, was like passing to another world; for no sooner was the last lodge of the Western drive left behind, than there came into sudden view the most pagan bit of landscape in all England. In this wild parliament-house, clouds, rocks, sun, and winds met and consulted. The \x91old\x92 men, too, had left their spirits among the great stones, which lay couched like lions on the hill-tops, under the white clouds, and their brethren, the hunting buzzard hawks. Here the very rocks were restless, changing form, and sense, and colour from day to day, as though worshipping the unexpected, and refusing themselves to law. The winds too in their passage revolted against their courses, and came tearing down wherever there were combes or crannies, so that men in their shelters might still learn the power of the wild gods. The wonders of this prospect were entirely lost on little Ann, and somewhat so on Courtier, deeply engaged in reconciling those two alien principles, courtesy, and the love of looking at a pretty face. He was wondering too what this girl of twenty, who had the self-possession of a woman of forty, might be thinking. It was little Ann who broke the silence. \x93Auntie Babs, it wasn\x92t a very strong house, was it?\x94 Courtier looked in the direction of her small finger. There was the wreck of a little house, which stood close to a stone man who had obviously possessed that hill before there were men of flesh. Over one corner of the sorry ruin, a single patch of roof still clung, but the rest was open. \x93He was a silly man to build it, wasn\x92t he, Ann? That\x92s why they call it Ashman\x92s Folly.\x94 \x93Is he alive?\x94 \x93Not quite\x97it\x92s just a hundred years ago.\x94 \x93What made him build it here?\x94 \x93He hated women, and\x97the roof fell in on him.\x94 \x93Why did he hate women?\x94 \x93He was a crank.\x94 \x93What is a crank?\x94 \x93Ask Mr. Courtier.\x94 Under this girl\x92s calm quizzical glance, Courtier endeavoured to find an answer to that question. \x93A crank,\x94 he said slowly, \x93is a man like me.\x94 He heard a little laugh, and became acutely conscious of Ann\x92s dispassionate examining eyes. \x93Is Uncle Eustace a crank?\x94 \x93You know now, Mr. Courtier, what Ann thinks of you. You think a good deal of Uncle Eustace, don\x92t you, Ann?\x94 \x93Yes,\x94 said Ann, and fixed her eyes before her. But Courtier gazed sideways\x97over her hatless head. His exhilaration was increasing every moment. This girl reminded him of a two-year-old filly he had once seen, stepping out of Ascot paddock for her first race, with the sun glistening on her satin chestnut skin, her neck held high, her eyes all fire\x97as sure to win, as that grass was green. It was difficult to believe her Miltoun\x92s sister. It was difficult to believe any of those four young Caradocs related. The grave ascetic Miltoun, wrapped in the garment of his spirit; mild, domestic, strait-laced Agatha; Bertie, muffled, shrewd, and steely; and this frank, joyful conquering Barbara\x97the range was wide. But the car had left the moor, and, down a steep hill, was passing the small villas and little grey workmen\x92s houses outside the town of Bucklandbury. \x93Ann and I have to go on to Miltoun\x92s headquarters. Shall I drop you at the enemy\x92s, Mr. Courtier? Stop, please, Frith.\x94 And before Courtier could assent, they had pulled up at a house on which was inscribed with extraordinary vigour: \x93Chilcox for Bucklandbury.\x94 Hobbling into the Committee-room of Mr. Humphrey Chilcox, which smelled of paint, Courtier took with him the scented memory of youth, and ambergris, and Harris tweed. In that room three men were assembled round a table; the eldest of whom, endowed with little grey eyes, a stubbly beard, and that mysterious something only found in those who have been mayors, rose at once and came towards him. \x93Mr. Courtier, I believe,\x94 he said bluffly. \x93Glad to see you, sir. Most distressed to hear of this outrage. Though in a way, it\x92s done us good. Yes, really. Grossly against fair play. Shouldn\x92t be surprised if it turned a couple of hundred votes. You carry the effects of it about with you, I see.\x94 A thin, refined man, with wiry hair, also came up, holding a newspaper in his hand. \x93It has had one rather embarrassing effect,\x94 he said. \x93Read this \x93\x91OUTRAGE ON A DISTINGUISHED VISITOR. \x93\x91LORD MILTOUN\x92S EVENING ADVENTURE.\x92\x94 Courtier read a paragraph. The man with the little eyes broke the ominous silence which ensued. \x93One of our side must have seen the whole thing, jumped on his bicycle and brought in the account before they went to press. They make no imputation on the lady\x97simply state the facts. Quite enough,\x94 he added with impersonal grimness; \x93I think he\x92s done for himself, sir.\x94 The man with the refined face added nervously: \x93We couldn\x92t help it, Mr. Courtier; I really don\x92t know what we can do. I don\x92t like it a bit.\x94 \x93Has your candidate seen this?\x94 Courtier asked. \x93Can\x92t have,\x94 struck in the third Committee-man; \x93we hadn\x92t seen it ourselves until an hour ago.\x94 \x93I should never have permitted it,\x94 said the man with the refined face; \x93I blame the editor greatly.\x94 \x93Come to that\x97\x97\x94 said the little-eyed man, \x93it\x92s a plain piece of news. If it makes a stir, that\x92s not our fault. The paper imputes nothing, it states. Position of the lady happens to do the rest. Can\x92t help it, and moreover, sir, speaking for self, don\x92t want to. We\x92ll have no loose morals in public life down here, please God!\x94 There was real feeling in his words; then, catching sight of Courtier\x92s face, he added: \x93Do you know this lady?\x94 \x93Ever since she was a child. Anyone who speaks evil of her, has to reckon with me.\x94 The man with the refined face said earnestly: \x93Believe me, Mr. Courtier, I entirely sympathize. We had nothing to do with the paragraph. It\x92s one of those incidents where one benefits against one\x92s will. Most unfortunate that she came out on to the green with Lord Miltoun; you know what people are.\x94 \x93It\x92s the head-line that does it;\x94 said the third Committee-man; \x93they\x92ve put what will attract the public.\x94 \x93I don\x92t know, I don\x92t know,\x94 said the little-eyed man stubbornly; \x93if Lord Miltoun will spend his evenings with lonely ladies, he can\x92t blame anybody but himself.\x94 Courtier looked from face to face. \x93This closes my connection with the campaign,\x94 he said: \x93What\x92s the address of this paper?\x94 And without waiting for an answer, he took up the journal and hobbled from the room. He stood a minute outside finding the address, then made his way down the street. CHAPTER VIII By the side of little Ann, Barbara sat leaning back amongst the cushions of the car. In spite of being already launched into high-caste life which brings with it an early knowledge of the world, she had still some of the eagerness in her face which makes children lovable. Yet she looked negligently enough at the citizens of Bucklandbury, being already a little conscious of the strange mixture of sentiment peculiar to her countrymen in presence of herself\x97that curious expression on their faces resulting from the continual attempt to look down their noses while slanting their eyes upwards. Yes, she was already alive to that mysterious glance which had built the national house and insured it afterwards\x97foe to cynicism, pessimism, and anything French or Russian; parent of all the national virtues, and all the national vices; of idealism and muddle-headedness, of independence and servility; fosterer of conduct, murderer of speculation; looking up, and looking down, but never straight at anything; most high, most deep, most queer; and ever bubbling-up from the essential Well of Emulation. Surrounded by that glance, waiting for Courtier, Barbara, not less British than her neighbours, was secretly slanting her own eyes up and down over the absent figure of her new acquaintance. She too wanted something she could look up to, and at the same time see damned first. And in this knight-errant it seemed to her that she had got it. He was a creature from another world. She had met many men, but not as yet one quite of this sort. It was rather nice to be with a clever man, who had none the less done so many outdoor things, been through so many bodily adventures. The mere writers, or even the \x91Bohemians,\x92 whom she occasionally met, were after all only \x91chaplains to the Court,\x92 necessary to keep aristocracy in touch with the latest developments of literature and art. But this Mr. Courtier was a man of action; he could not be looked on with the amused, admiring toleration suited to men remarkable only for ideas, and the way they put them into paint or ink. He had used, and could use, the sword, even in the cause of Peace. He could love, had loved, or so they said: If Barbara had been a girl of twenty in another class, she would probably never have heard of this, and if she had heard, it might very well have dismayed or shocked her. But she had heard, and without shock, because she had already learned that men were like that, and women too sometimes. It was with quite a little pang of concern that she saw him hobbling down the street towards her; and when he was once more seated, she told the chauffeur: \x93To the station, Frith. Quick, please!\x94 and began: \x93You are not to be trusted a bit. What were you doing?\x94 But Courtier smiled grimly over the head of Ann, in silence. At this, almost the first time she had ever yet encountered a distinct rebuff, Barbara quivered, as though she had been touched lightly with a whip. Her lips closed firmly, her eyes began to dance. \x93Very well, my dear,\x94 she thought. But presently stealing a look at him, she became aware of such a queer expression on his face, that she forgot she was offended. \x93Is anything wrong, Mr. Courtier?\x94 \x93Yes, Lady Barbara, something is very wrong\x97that miserable mean thing, the human tongue.\x94 Barbara had an intuitive knowledge of how to handle things, a kind of moral sangfroid, drawn in from the faces she had watched, the talk she had heard, from her youth up. She trusted those intuitions, and letting her eyes conspire with his over Ann\x92s brown hair, she said: \x93Anything to do with Mrs. N\x97\x97-?\x94 Seeing \x93Yes\x94 in his eyes, she added quickly: \x93And M\x97\x97-?\x94 Courtier nodded. \x93I thought that was coming. Let them babble! Who cares?\x94 She caught an approving glance, and the word, \x93Good!\x94 But the car had drawn up at Bucklandbury Station. The little grey figure of Lady Casterley, coming out of the station doorway, showed but slight sign of her long travel. She stopped to take the car in, from chauffeur to Courtier. \x93Well, Frith!\x97Mr. Courtier, is it? I know your book, and I don\x92t approve of you; you\x92re a dangerous man\x97How do you do? I must have those two bags. The cart can bring the rest.... Randle, get up in front, and don\x92t get dusty. Ann!\x94 But Ann was already beside the chauffeur, having long planned this improvement. \x93H\x92m! So you\x92ve hurt your leg, sir? Keep still! We can sit three.... Now, my dear, I can kiss you! You\x92ve grown!\x94 Lady Casterley\x92s kiss, once received, was never forgotten; neither perhaps was Barbara\x92s. Yet they were different. For, in the case of Lady Casterley, the old eyes, bright and investigating, could be seen deciding the exact spot for the lips to touch; then the face with its firm chin was darted forward; the lips paused a second, as though to make quite certain, then suddenly dug hard and dry into the middle of the cheek, quavered for the fraction of a second as if trying to remember to be soft, and were relaxed like the elastic of a catapult. And in the case of Barbara, first a sort of light came into her eyes, then her chin tilted a little, then her lips pouted a little, her body quivered, as if it were getting a size larger, her hair breathed, there was a small sweet sound; it was over. Thus kissing her grandmother, Barbara resumed her seat, and looked at Courtier. \x91Sitting three\x92 as they were, he was touching her, and it seemed to her somehow that he did not mind. The wind had risen, blowing from the West, and sunshine was flying on it. The call of the cuckoos\x97a little sharpened\x97followed the swift-travelling car. And that essential sweetness of the moor, born of the heather roots and the South-West wind, was stealing out from under the young ferns. With her thin nostrils distended to this scent, Lady Casterley bore a distinct resemblance to a small, fine game-bird. \x93You smell nice down here,\x94 she said. \x93Now, Mr. Courtier, before I forget\x97who is this Mrs. Lees Noel that I hear so much of?\x94 At that question, Barbara could not help sliding her eyes round. How would he stand up to Granny? It was the moment to see what he was made of. Granny was terrific! \x93A very charming woman, Lady Casterley.\x94 \x93No doubt; but I am tired of hearing that. What is her story?\x94 \x93Has she one?\x94 \x93Ha!\x94 said Lady Casterley. Ever so slightly Barbara let her arm press against Courtiers. It was so delicious to hear Granny getting no forwarder. \x93I may take it she has a past, then?\x94 \x93Not from me, Lady Casterley.\x94 Again Barbara gave him that imperceptible and flattering touch. \x93Well, this is all very mysterious. I shall find out for myself. You know her, my dear. You must take me to see her.\x94 \x93Dear Granny! If people hadn\x92t pasts, they wouldn\x92t have futures.\x94 Lady Casterley let her little claw-like hand descend on her grand-daughter\x92s thigh. \x93Don\x92t talk nonsense, and don\x92t stretch like that!\x94 she said; \x93you\x92re too large already....\x94 At dinner that night they were all in possession of the news. Sir William had been informed by the local agent at Staverton, where Lord Harbinger\x92s speech had suffered from some rude interruptions. The Hon. Geoffrey Winlow; having sent his wife on, had flown over in his biplane from Winkleigh, and brought a copy of \x91the rag\x92 with him. The one member of the small house-party who had not heard the report before dinner was Lord Dennis Fitz-Harold, Lady Casterley\x92s brother. Little, of course, was said. But after the ladies had withdrawn, Harbinger, with that plain-spoken spontaneity which was so unexpected, perhaps a little intentionally so, in connection with his almost classically formed face, uttered words to the effect that, if they did not fundamentally kick that rumour, it was all up with Miltoun. Really this was serious! And the beggars knew it, and they were going to work it. And Miltoun had gone up to Town, no one knew what for. It was the devil of a mess! In all the conversation of this young man there was that peculiar brand of voice, which seems ever rebutting an accusation of being serious\x97a brand of voice and manner warranted against anything save ridicule; and in the face of ridicule apt to disappear. The words, just a little satirically spoken: \x93What is, my dear young man?\x94 stopped him at once. Looking for the complement and counterpart of Lady Casterley, one would perhaps have singled out her brother. All her abrupt decision was negated in his profound, ironical urbanity. His voice and look and manner were like his velvet coat, which had here and there a whitish sheen, as if it had been touched by moonlight. His hair too had that sheen. His very delicate features were framed in a white beard and moustache of Elizabethan shape. His eyes, hazel and still clear, looked out very straight, with a certain dry kindliness. His face, though unweathered and unseamed, and much too fine and thin in texture, had a curious affinity to the faces of old sailors or fishermen who have lived a simple, practical life in the light of an overmastering tradition. It was the face of a man with a very set creed, and inclined to be satiric towards innovations, examined by him and rejected full fifty years ago. One felt that a brain not devoid either of subtlety or aesthetic quality had long given up all attempts to interfere with conduct; that all shrewdness of speculation had given place to shrewdness of practical judgment based on very definite experience. Owing to lack of advertising power, natural to one so conscious of his dignity as to have lost all care for it, and to his devotion to a certain lady, only closed by death, his life had been lived, as it were, in shadow. Still, he possessed a peculiar influence in Society, because it was known to be impossible to get him to look at things in a complicated way. He was regarded rather as a last resort, however. \x93Bad as that? Well, there\x92s old Fitz-Harold! Try him! He won\x92t advise you, but he\x92ll say something.\x94 And in the heart of that irreverent young man, Harbinger, there stirred a sort of misgiving. Had he expressed himself too freely? Had he said anything too thick? He had forgotten the old boy! Stirring Bertie up with his foot, he murmured \x93Forgot you didn\x92t know, sir. Bertie will explain.\x94 Thus called on, Bertie, opening his lips a very little way, and fixing his half-closed eyes on his great-uncle, explained. There was a lady at the cottage\x97a nice woman\x97Mr. Courtier knew her\x97old Miltoun went there sometimes\x97rather late the other evening\x97these devils were making the most of it\x97suggesting\x97lose him the election, if they didn\x92t look out. Perfect rot, of course! In his opinion, old Miltoun, though as steady as Time, had been a flat to let the woman come out with him on to the Green, showing clearly where he had been, when he ran to Courtier\x92s rescue. You couldn\x92t play about with women who had no form that anyone knew anything of, however promising they might look. Then, out of a silence Winlow asked: What was to be done? Should Miltoun be wired for? A thing like this spread like wildfire! Sir William\x97a man not accustomed to underrate difficulties\x97was afraid it was going to be troublesome. Harbinger expressed the opinion that the editor ought to be kicked. Did anybody know what Courtier had done when he heard of it. Where was he\x97dining in his room? Bertie suggested that if Miltoun was at Valleys House, it mightn\x92t be too late to wire to him. The thing ought to be stemmed at once! And in all this concern about the situation there kept cropping out quaint little outbursts of desire to disregard the whole thing as infernal insolence, and metaphorically to punch the beggars\x92 heads, natural to young men of breeding. Then, out of another silence came the voice of Lord Dennis: \x93I am thinking of this poor lady.\x94 Turning a little abruptly towards that dry suave voice, and recovering the self-possession which seldom deserted him, Harbinger murmured: \x93Quite so, sir; of course!\x94 CHAPTER IX In the lesser withdrawing room, used when there was so small a party, Mrs. Winlow had gone to the piano and was playing to herself, for Lady Casterley, Lady Valleys, and her two daughters had drawn together as though united to face this invading rumour. It was curious testimony to Miltoun\x92s character that, no more here than in the dining-hall, was there any doubt of the integrity of his relations with Mrs. Noel. But whereas, there the matter was confined to its electioneering aspect, here that aspect was already perceived to be only the fringe of its importance. Those feminine minds, going with intuitive swiftness to the core of anything which affected their own males, had already grasped the fact that the rumour would, as it were, chain a man of Miltoun\x92s temper to this woman. But they were walking on such a thin crust of facts, and there was so deep a quagmire of supposition beneath, that talk was almost painfully difficult. Never before perhaps had each of these four women realized so clearly how much Miltoun\x97that rather strange and unknown grandson, son, and brother\x97counted in the scheme of existence. Their suppressed agitation was manifested in very different ways. Lady Casterley, upright in her chair, showed it only by an added decision of speech, a continual restless movement of one hand, a thin line between her usually smooth brows. Lady Valleys wore a puzzled look, as if a little surprised that she felt serious. Agatha looked frankly anxious. She was in her quiet way a woman of much character, endowed with that natural piety, which accepts without questioning the established order in life and religion. The world to her being home and family, she had a real, if gently expressed, horror of all that she instinctively felt to be subversive of this ideal. People judged her a little quiet, dull, and narrow; they compared her to a hen for ever clucking round her chicks. The streak of heroism that lay in her nature was not perhaps of patent order. Her feeling about her brother\x92s situation however was sincere and not to be changed or comforted. She saw him in danger of being damaged in the only sense in which she could conceive of a man\x97as a husband and a father. It was this that went to her heart, though her piety proclaimed to her also the peril of his soul; for she shared the High Church view of the indissolubility of marriage. As to Barbara, she stood by the hearth, leaning her white shoulders against the carved marble, her hands behind her, looking down. Now and then her lips curled, her level brows twitched, a faint sigh came from her; then a little smile would break out, and be instantly suppressed. She alone was silent\x97Youth criticizing Life; her judgment voiced itself only in the untroubled rise and fall of her young bosom, the impatience of her brows, the downward look of her blue eyes, full of a lazy, inextinguishable light: Lady Valleys sighed. \x93If only he weren\x92t such a queer boy! He\x92s quite capable of marrying her from sheer perversity.\x94 \x93What!\x94 said Lady Casterley. \x93You haven\x92t seen her, my dear. A most unfortunately attractive creature\x97quite a charming face.\x94 Agatha said quietly: \x93Mother, if she was divorced, I don\x92t think Eustace would.\x94 \x93There\x92s that, certainly,\x94 murmured Lady Valleys; \x93hope for the best!\x94 \x93Don\x92t you even know which way it was?\x94 said Lady Casterley. \x93Well, the vicar says she did the divorcing. But he\x92s very charitable; it may be as Agatha hopes.\x94 \x93I detest vagueness. Why doesn\x92t someone ask the woman?\x94 \x93You shall come with me, Granny dear, and ask her yourself; you will do it so nicely.\x94 Lady Casterley looked up. \x93We shall see,\x94 she said. Something struggled with the autocratic criticism in her eyes. No more than the rest of the world could she help indulging Barbara. As one who believed in the divinity of her order, she liked this splendid child. She even admired\x97though admiration was not what she excelled in\x97that warm joy in life, as of some great nymph, parting the waves with bare limbs, tossing from her the foam of breakers. She felt that in this granddaughter, rather than in the good Agatha, the patrician spirit was housed. There were points to Agatha, earnestness and high principle; but something morally narrow and over-Anglican slightly offended the practical, this-worldly temper of Lady Casterley. It was a weakness, and she disliked weakness. Barbara would never be squeamish over moral questions or matters such as were not really, essential to aristocracy. She might, indeed, err too much the other way from sheer high spirits. As the impudent child had said: \x93If people had no pasts, they would have no futures.\x94 And Lady Casterley could not bear people without futures. She was ambitious; not with the low ambition of one who had risen from nothing, but with the high passion of one on the top, who meant to stay there. \x93And where have you been meeting this\x97er\x97anonymous creature?\x94 she asked. Barbara came from the hearth, and bending down beside Lady Casterley\x92s chair, seemed to envelop her completely. \x93I\x92m all right, Granny; she couldn\x92t corrupt me.\x94 Lady Casterley\x92s face peered out doubtfully from that warmth, wearing a look of disapproving pleasure. \x93I know your wiles!\x94 she said. \x93Come, now!\x94 \x93I see her about. She\x92s nice to look at. We talk.\x94 Again with that hurried quietness Agatha said: \x93My dear Babs, I do think you ought to wait.\x94 \x93My dear Angel, why? What is it to me if she\x92s had four husbands?\x94 Agatha bit her lips, and Lady Valleys murmured with a laugh: \x93You really are a terror, Babs.\x94 But the sound of Mrs. Winlow\x92s music had ceased\x97the men had come in. And the faces of the four women hardened, as if they had slipped on masks; for though this was almost or quite a family party, the Winlows being second cousins, still the subject was one which each of these four in their very different ways felt to be beyond general discussion. Talk, now, began glancing from the war scare\x97Winlow had it very specially that this would be over in a week\x97to Brabrook\x92s speech, in progress at that very moment, of which Harbinger provided an imitation. It sped to Winlow\x92s flight\x97to Andrew Grant\x92s articles in the \x91Parthenon\x92\x97to the caricature of Harbinger in the \x91Cackler\x92, inscribed \x91The New Tory. Lord H-rb-ng-r brings Social Reform beneath the notice of his friends,\x92 which depicted him introducing a naked baby to a number of coroneted old ladies. Thence to a dancer. Thence to the Bill for Universal Assurance. Then back to the war scare; to the last book of a great French writer; and once more to Winlow\x92s flight. It was all straightforward and outspoken, each seeming to say exactly what came into the head. For all that, there was a curious avoidance of the spiritual significances of these things; or was it perhaps that such significances were not seen? Lord Dennis, at the far end of the room, studying a portfolio of engravings, felt a touch on his cheek; and conscious of a certain fragrance, said without turning his head: \x93Nice things, these, Babs!\x94 Receiving no answer he looked up. There indeed stood Barbara. \x93I do hate sneering behind people\x92s backs!\x94 There had always been good comradeship between these two, since the days when Barbara, a golden-haired child, astride of a grey pony, had been his morning companion in the Row all through the season. His riding days were past; he had now no outdoor pursuit save fishing, which he followed with the ironic persistence of a self-contained, high-spirited nature, which refuses to admit that the mysterious finger of old age is laid across it. But though she was no longer his companion, he still had a habit of expecting her confidences; and he looked after her, moving away from him to a window, with surprised concern. It was one of those nights, dark yet gleaming, when there seems a flying malice in the heavens; when the stars, from under and above the black clouds, are like eyes frowning and flashing down at men with purposed malevolence. The great sighing trees even had caught this spirit, save one, a dark, spire-like cypress, planted three hundred and fifty years before, whose tall form incarnated the very spirit of tradition, and neither swayed nor soughed like the others. From her, too close-fibred, too resisting, to admit the breath of Nature, only a dry rustle came. Still almost exotic, in spite of her centuries of sojourn, and now brought to life by the eyes of night, she seemed almost terrifying, in her narrow, spear-like austerity, as though something had dried and died within her soul. Barbara came back from the window. \x93We can\x92t do anything in our lives, it seems to me,\x94 she said, \x93but play at taking risks!\x94 Lord Dennis replied dryly: \x93I don\x92t think I understand, my dear.\x94 \x93Look at Mr. Courtier!\x94 muttered Barbara. \x93His life\x92s so much more risky altogether than any of our men folk lead. And yet they sneer at him.\x94 \x93Let\x92s see, what has he done?\x94 \x93Oh! I dare say not very much; but it\x92s all neck or nothing. But what does anything matter to Harbinger, for instance? If his Social Reform comes to nothing, he\x92ll still be Harbinger, with fifty thousand a year.\x94 Lord Dennis looked up a little queerly. \x93What! Is it possible you don\x92t take the young man seriously, Babs?\x94 Barbara shrugged; a strap slipped a little off one white shoulder. \x93It\x92s all play really; and he knows it\x97you can tell that from his voice. He can\x92t help its not mattering, of course; and he knows that too.\x94 \x93I have heard that he\x92s after you, Babs; is that true?\x94 \x93He hasn\x92t caught me yet.\x94 \x93Will he?\x94 Barbara\x92s answer was another shrug; and, for all their statuesque beauty, the movement of her shoulders was like the shrug of a little girl in her pinafore. \x93And this Mr. Courtier,\x94 said Lord Dennis dryly: \x93Are you after him?\x94 \x93I\x92m after everything; didn\x92t you know that, dear?\x94 \x93In reason, my child.\x94 \x93In reason, of course\x97like poor Eusty!\x94 She stopped. Harbinger himself was standing there close by, with an air as nearly approaching reverence as was ever to be seen on him. In truth, the way in which he was looking at her was almost timorous. \x93Will you sing that song I like so much, Lady Babs?\x94 They moved away together; and Lord Dennis, gazing after that magnificent young couple, stroked his beard gravely. CHAPTER X Miltoun\x92s sudden journey to London had been undertaken in pursuance of a resolve slowly forming from the moment he met Mrs. Noel in the stone flagged passage of Burracombe Farm. If she would have him and since last evening he believed she would\x97he intended to marry her. It has been said that except for one lapse his life had been austere, but this is not to assert that he had no capacity for passion. The contrary was the case. That flame which had been so jealously guarded smouldered deep within him\x97a smothered fire with but little air to feed on. The moment his spirit was touched by the spirit of this woman, it had flared up. She was the incarnation of all that he desired. Her hair, her eyes, her form; the tiny tuck or dimple at the corner of her mouth just where a child places its finger; her way of moving, a sort of unconscious swaying or yielding to the air; the tone in her voice, which seemed to come not so much from happiness of her own as from an innate wish to make others happy; and that natural, if not robust, intelligence, which belongs to the very sympathetic, and is rarely found in women of great ambitions or enthusiasms\x97all these things had twined themselves round his heart. He not only dreamed of her, and wanted her; he believed in her. She filled his thoughts as one who could never do wrong; as one who, though a wife would remain a mistress, and though a mistress, would always be the companion of his spirit. It has been said that no one spoke or gossiped about women in Miltoun\x92s presence, and the tale of her divorce was present to his mind simply in the form of a conviction that she was an injured woman. After his interview with the vicar, he had only once again alluded to it, and that in answer to the speech of a lady staying at the Court: \x93Oh! yes, I remember her case perfectly. She was the poor woman who\x97\x97\x94 \x93Did not, I am certain, Lady Bonington.\x94 The tone of his voice had made someone laugh uneasily; the subject was changed. All divorce was against his convictions, but in a blurred way he admitted that there were cases where release was unavoidable. He was not a man to ask for confidences, or expect them to be given him. He himself had never confided his spiritual struggles to any living creature; and the unspiritual struggle had little interest for Miltoun. He was ready at any moment to stake his life on the perfection of the idol he had set up within his soul, as simply and straightforwardly as he would have placed his body in front of her to shield her from harm. The same fanaticism, which looked on his passion as a flower by itself, entirely apart from its suitability to the social garden, was also the driving force which sent him up to London to declare his intention to his father before he spoke to Mrs. Noel. The thing should be done simply, and in right order. For he had the kind of moral courage found in those who live retired within the shell of their own aspirations. Yet it was not perhaps so much active moral courage as indifference to what others thought or did, coming from his inbred resistance to the appreciation of what they felt. That peculiar smile of the old Tudor Cardinal\x97which had in it invincible self-reliance, and a sort of spiritual sneer\x97played over his face when he speculated on his father\x92s reception of the coming news; and very soon he ceased to think of it at all, burying himself in the work he had brought with him for the journey. For he had in high degree the faculty, so essential to public life, of switching off his whole attention from one subject to another. On arriving at Paddington he drove straight to Valleys House. This large dwelling with its pillared portico, seemed to wear an air of faint surprise that, at the height of the season, it was not more inhabited. Three servants relieved Miltoun of his little luggage; and having washed, and learned that his father would be dining in, he went for a walk, taking his way towards his rooms in the Temple. His long figure, somewhat carelessly garbed, attracted the usual attention, of which he was as usual unaware. Strolling along, he meditated deeply on a London, an England, different from this flatulent hurly-burly, this \x91omniuin gatherum\x92, this great discordant symphony of sharps and flats. A London, an England, kempt and self-respecting; swept and garnished of slums, and plutocrats, advertisement, and jerry-building, of sensationalism, vulgarity, vice, and unemployment. An England where each man should know his place, and never change it, but serve in it loyally in his own caste. Where every man, from nobleman to labourer, should be an oligarch by faith, and a gentleman by practice. An England so steel-bright and efficient that the very sight should suffice to impose peace. An England whose soul should be stoical and fine with the stoicism and fineness of each soul amongst her many million souls; where the town should have its creed and the country its creed, and there should be contentment and no complaining in her streets. And as he walked down the Strand, a little ragged boy cheeped out between his legs: \x93Bloodee discoveree in a Bank\x97Grite sensytion! Pi-er!\x94 Miltoun paid no heed to that saying; yet, with it, the wind that blows where man lives, the careless, wonderful, unordered wind, had dispersed his austere and formal vision. Great was that wind\x97the myriad aspiration of men and women, the praying of the uncounted multitude to the goddess of Sensation\x97of Chance, and Change. A flowing from heart to heart, from lip to lip, as in Spring the wistful air wanders through a wood, imparting to every bush and tree the secrets of fresh life, the passionate resolve to grow, and become\x97no matter what! A sighing, as eternal as the old murmuring of the sea, as little to be hushed, as prone to swell into sudden roaring! Miltoun held on through the traffic, not looking overmuch at the present forms of the thousands he passed, but seeing with the eyes of faith the forms he desired to see. Near St. Paul\x92s he stopped in front of an old book-shop. His grave, pallid, not unhandsome face, was well-known to William Rimall, its small proprietor, who at once brought out his latest acquisition\x97a Mores \x91Utopia.\x92 That particular edition (he assured Miltoun) was quite unprocurable\x97he had never sold but one other copy, which had been literally, crumbling away. This copy was in even better condition. It could hardly last another twenty years\x97a genuine book, a bargain. There wasn\x92t so much movement in More as there had been a little time back. Miltoun opened the tome, and a small book-louse who had been sleeping on the word \x91Tranibore,\x92 began to make its way slowly towards the very centre of the volume. \x93I see it\x92s genuine,\x94 said Miltoun. \x93It\x92s not to read, my lord,\x94 the little man warned him: \x93Hardly safe to turn the pages. As I was saying\x97I\x92ve not had a better piece this year. I haven\x92t really!\x94 \x93Shrewd old dreamer,\x94 muttered Miltoun; \x93the Socialists haven\x92t got beyond him, even now.\x94 The little man\x92s eyes blinked, as though apologizing for the views of Thomas More. \x93Well,\x94 he said, \x93I suppose he was one of them. I forget if your lordship\x92s very strong on politics?\x94 Miltoun smiled. \x93I want to see an England, Rimall, something like the England of Mores dream. But my machinery will be different. I shall begin at the top.\x94 The little man nodded. \x93Quite so, quite so,\x94 he said; \x93we shall come to that, I dare say.\x94 \x93We must, Rimall.\x94 And Miltoun turned the page. The little man\x92s face quivered. \x93I don\x92t think,\x94 he said, \x93that book\x92s quite strong enough for you, my lord, with your taste for reading. Now I\x92ve a most curious old volume here\x97on Chinese temples. It\x92s rare\x97but not too old. You can peruse it thoroughly. It\x92s what I call a book to browse on just suit your palate. Funny principle they built those things on,\x94 he added, opening the volume at an engraving, \x93in layers. We don\x92t build like that in England.\x94 Miltoun looked up sharply; the little man\x92s face wore no signs of understanding. \x93Unfortunately we don\x92t, Rimall,\x94 he said; \x93we ought to, and we shall. I\x92ll take this book.\x94 Placing his finger on the print of the pagoda, he added: \x93A good symbol.\x94 The little bookseller\x92s eye strayed down the temple to the secret price mark. \x93Exactly, my lord,\x94 he said; \x93I thought it\x92d be your fancy. The price to you will be twenty-seven and six.\x94 Miltoun, pocketing the bargain, walked out. He made his way into the Temple, left the book at his Chambers, and passed on down to the bank of Mother Thames. The Sun was loving her passionately that afternoon; he had kissed her into warmth and light and colour. And all the buildings along her banks, as far as the towers at Westminster, seemed to be smiling. It was a great sight for the eyes of a lover. And another vision came haunting Miltoun, of a soft-eyed woman with a low voice, bending amongst her flowers. Nothing would be complete without her; no work bear fruit; no scheme could have full meaning. Lord Valleys greeted his son at dinner with good fellowship and a faint surprise. \x93Day off, my dear fellow? Or have you come up to hear Brabrook pitch into us? He\x92s rather late this time\x97we\x92ve got rid of that balloon business no trouble after all.\x94 And he eyed Miltoun with that clear grey stare of his, so cool, level, and curious. Now, what sort of bird is this? it seemed saying. Certainly not the partridge I should have expected from its breeding! Miltoun\x92s answer: \x93I came up to tell you some thing, sir,\x94 riveted his father\x92s stare for a second longer than was quite urbane. It would not be true to say that Lord Valleys was afraid of his son. Fear was not one of his emotions, but he certainly regarded him with a respectful curiosity that bordered on uneasiness. The oligarchic temper of Miltoun\x92s mind and political convictions almost shocked one who knew both by temperament and experience how to wait in front. This instruction he had frequently had occasion to give his jockeys when he believed his horses could best get home first in that way. And it was an instruction he now longed to give his son. He himself had \x91waited in front\x92 for over fifty years, and he knew it to be the finest way of insuring that he would never be compelled to alter this desirable policy\x97for something in Lord Valleys\x92 character made him fear that, in real emergency, he would exert himself to the point of the gravest discomfort sooner than be left to wait behind. A fellow like young Harbinger, of course, he understood\x97versatile, \x91full of beans,\x92 as he expressed it to himself in his more confidential moments, who had imbibed the new wine (very intoxicating it was) of desire for social reform. He would have to be given his head a little\x97but there would be no difficulty with him, he would never \x91run out\x92\x97light handy build of horse that only required steadying at the corners. He would want to hear himself talk, and be let feel that he was doing something. All very well, and quite intelligible. But with Miltoun (and Lord Valleys felt this to be no, mere parental fancy) it was a very different business. His son had a way of forcing things to their conclusions which was dangerous, and reminded him of his mother-in-law. He was a baby in public affairs, of course, as yet; but as soon as he once got going, the intensity of his convictions, together with his position, and real gift\x97not of the gab, like Harbinger\x92s\x97but of restrained, biting oratory, was sure to bring him to the front with a bound in the present state of parties. And what were those convictions? Lord Valleys had tried to understand them, but up to the present he had failed. And this did not surprise him exactly, since, as he often said, political convictions were not, as they appeared on the surface, the outcome of reason, but merely symptoms of temperament. And he could not comprehend, because he could not sympathize with, any attitude towards public affairs that was not essentially level, attached to the plain, common-sense factors of the case as they appeared to himself. Not that he could fairly be called a temporizer, for deep down in him there was undoubtedly a vein of obstinate, fundamental loyalty to the traditions of a caste which prized high spirit beyond all things. Still he did feel that Miltoun was altogether too much the \x91pukka\x92 aristocrat\x97no better than a Socialist, with his confounded way of seeing things all cut and dried; his ideas of forcing reforms down people\x92s throats and holding them there with the iron hand! With his way too of acting on his principles! Why! He even admitted that he acted on his principles! This thought always struck a very discordant note in Lord Valleys\x92 breast. It was almost indecent; worse-ridiculous! The fact was, the dear fellow had unfortunately a deeper habit of thought than was wanted in politics\x97dangerous\x97very! Experience might do something for him! And out of his own long experience the Earl of Valleys tried hard to recollect any politician whom the practice of politics had left where he was when he started. He could not think of one. But this gave him little comfort; and, above a piece of late asparagus his steady eyes sought his son\x92s. What had he come up to tell him? The phrase had been ominous; he could not recollect Miltoun\x92s ever having told him anything. For though a really kind and indulgent father, he had\x97like so many men occupied with public and other lives\x97a little acquired towards his offspring the look and manner: Is this mine? Of his four children, Barbara alone he claimed with conviction. He admired her; and, being a man who savoured life, he was unable to love much except where he admired. But, the last person in the world to hustle any man or force a confidence, he waited to hear his son\x92s news, betraying no uneasiness. Miltoun seemed in no hurry. He described Courtier\x92s adventure, which tickled Lord Valleys a good deal. \x93Ordeal by red pepper! Shouldn\x92t have thought them equal to that,\x94 he said. \x93So you\x92ve got him at Monkland now. Harbinger still with you?\x94 \x93Yes. I don\x92t think Harbinger has much stamina. \x93Politically?\x94 Miltoun nodded. \x93I rather resent his being on our side\x97I don\x92t think he does us any good. You\x92ve seen that cartoon, I suppose; it cuts pretty deep. I couldn\x92t recognize you amongst the old women, sir.\x94 Lord Valleys smiled impersonally. \x93Very clever thing. By the way; I shall win the Eclipse, I think.\x94 And thus, spasmodically, the conversation ran till the last servant had left the room. Then Miltoun, without preparation, looked straight at his father and said: \x93I want to marry Mrs. Noel, sir.\x94 Lord Valleys received the shot with exactly the same expression as that with which he was accustomed to watch his horses beaten. Then he raised his wineglass to his lips; and set it down again untouched. This was the only sign he gave of interest or discomfiture. \x93Isn\x92t this rather sudden?\x94 Miltoun answered: \x93I\x92ve wanted to from the moment I first saw her.\x94 Lord Valleys, almost as good a judge of a man and a situation as of a horse or a pointer dog, leaned back in his chair, and said with faint sarcasm: \x93My dear fellow, it\x92s good of you to have told me this; though, to be quite frank, it\x92s a piece of news I would rather not have heard.\x94 A dusky flush burned slowly up in Miltoun\x92s cheeks. He had underrated his father; the man had coolness and courage in a crisis. \x93What is your objection, sir?\x94 And suddenly he noticed that a wafer in Lord Valleys\x92 hand was quivering. This brought into his eyes no look of compunction, but such a smouldering gaze as the old Tudor Churchman might have bent on an adversary who showed a sign of weakness. Lord Valleys, too, noticed the quivering of that wafer, and ate it. \x93We are men of the world,\x94 he said. Miltoun answered: \x93I am not.\x94 Showing his first real symptom of impatience Lord Valleys rapped out: \x93So be it! I am.\x94 \x93Yes?\x94, said Miltoun. \x93Eustace!\x94 Nursing one knee, Miltoun faced that appeal without the faintest movement. His eyes continued to burn into his father\x92s face. A tremor passed over Lord Valleys\x92 heart. What intensity of feeling there was in the fellow, that he could look like this at the first breath of opposition! He reached out and took up the cigar-box; held it absently towards his son, and drew it quickly back. \x93I forgot,\x94 he said; \x93you don\x92t.\x94 And lighting a cigar, he smoked gravely, looking straight before him, a furrow between his brows. He spoke at last: \x93She looks like a lady. I know nothing else about her.\x94 The smile deepened round Miltoun\x92s mouth. \x93Why should you want to know anything else?\x94 Lord Valleys shrugged. His philosophy had hardened. \x93I understand for one thing,\x94 he said coldly; \x93that there is a matter of a divorce. I thought you took the Church\x92s view on that subject.\x94 \x93She has not done wrong.\x94 \x93You know her story, then?\x94 \x93No.\x94 Lord Valleys raised his brows, in irony and a sort of admiration. \x93Chivalry the better part of discretion?\x94 Miltoun answered: \x93You don\x92t, I think, understand the kind of feeling I have for Mrs. Noel. It does not come into your scheme of things. It is the only feeling, however, with which I should care to marry, and I am not likely to feel it for anyone again.\x94 Lord Valleys felt once more that uncanny sense of insecurity. Was this true? And suddenly he felt Yes, it is true! The face before him was the face of one who would burn in his own fire sooner than depart from his standards. And a sudden sense of the utter seriousness of this dilemma dumbed him. \x93I can say no more at the moment,\x94 he muttered and got up from the table. CHAPTER XI Lady Casterley was that inconvenient thing\x97an early riser. No woman in the kingdom was a better judge of a dew carpet. Nature had in her time displayed before her thousands of those pretty fabrics, where all the stars of the past night, dropped to the dark earth, were waiting to glide up to heaven again on the rays of the sun. At Ravensham she walked regularly in her gardens between half-past seven and eight, and when she paid a visit, was careful to subordinate whatever might be the local custom to this habit. When therefore her maid Randle came to Barbara\x92s maid at seven o\x92clock, and said: \x93My old lady wants Lady Babs to get up,\x94 there was no particular pain in the breast of Barbara\x92s maid, who was doing up her corsets. She merely answered \x93I\x92ll see to it. Lady Babs won\x92t be too pleased!\x94 And ten minutes later she entered that white-walled room which smelled of pinks-a temple of drowsy sweetness, where the summer light was vaguely stealing through flowered chintz curtains. Barbara was sleeping with her cheek on her hand, and her tawny hair, gathered back, streaming over the pillow. Her lips were parted; and the maid thought: \x93I\x92d like to have hair and a mouth like that!\x94 She could not help smiling to herself with pleasure; Lady Babs looked so pretty\x97prettier asleep even than awake! And at sight of that beautiful creature, sleeping and smiling in her sleep, the earthy, hothouse fumes steeping the mind of one perpetually serving in an atmosphere unsuited to her natural growth, dispersed. Beauty, with its queer touching power of freeing the spirit from all barriers and thoughts of self, sweetened the maid\x92s eyes, and kept her standing, holding her breath. For Barbara asleep was a symbol of that Golden Age in which she so desperately believed. She opened her eyes, and seeing the maid, said: \x93Is it eight o\x92clock, Stacey?\x94 \x93No, but Lady Casterley wants you to walk with her.\x94 \x93Oh! bother! I was having such a dream!\x94 \x93Yes; you were smiling.\x94 \x93I was dreaming that I could fly.\x94 \x93Fancy!\x94 \x93I could see everything spread out below me, as close as I see you; I was hovering like a buzzard hawk. I felt that I could come down exactly where I wanted. It was fascinating. I had perfect power, Stacey.\x94 And throwing her neck back, she closed her eyes again. The sunlight streamed in on her between the half-drawn curtains. The queerest impulse to put out a hand and stroke that full white throat shot through the maid\x92s mind. \x93These flying machines are stupid,\x94 murmured Barbara; \x93the pleasure\x92s in one\x92s body\x97-wings!\x94 \x93I can see Lady Casterley in the garden.\x94 Barbara sprang out of bed. Close by the statue of Diana Lady Casterley was standing, gazing down at some flowers, a tiny, grey figure. Barbara sighed. With her, in her dream, had been another buzzard hawk, and she was filled with a sort of surprise, and queer pleasure that ran down her in little shivers while she bathed and dressed. In her haste she took no hat; and still busy with the fastening of her linen frock, hurried down the stairs and Georgian corridor, towards the garden. At the end of it she almost ran into the arms of Courtier. Awakening early this morning, he had begun first thinking of Audrey Noel, threatened by scandal; then of his yesterday\x92s companion, that glorious young creature, whose image had so gripped and taken possession of him. In the pleasure of this memory he had steeped himself. She was youth itself! That perfect thing, a young girl without callowness. And his words, when she nearly ran into him, were: \x93The Winged Victory!\x94 Barbara\x92s answer was equally symbolic: \x93A buzzard hawk! Do you know, I dreamed we were flying, Mr. Courtier.\x94 Courtier gravely answered \x93If the gods give me that dream\x97\x97\x94 From the garden door Barbara turned her head, smiled, and passed through. Lady Casterley, in the company of little Ann, who had perceived that it was novel to be in the garden at this hour, had been scrutinizing some newly founded colonies of a flower with which she was not familiar. On seeing her granddaughter approach, she said at once: \x93What is this thing?\x94 \x93Nemesia.\x94 \x93Never heard of it.\x94 \x93It\x92s rather the fashion, Granny.\x94 \x93Nemesia?\x94 repeated Lady Casterley. \x93What has Nemesis to do with flowers? I have no patience with gardeners, and these idiotic names. Where is your hat? I like that duck\x92s egg colour in your frock. There\x92s a button undone.\x94 And reaching up her little spidery hand, wonderfully steady considering its age, she buttoned the top button but one of Barbara\x92s bodice. \x93You look very blooming, my dear,\x94 she said. \x93How far is it to this woman\x92s cottage? We\x92ll go there now.\x94 \x93She wouldn\x92t be up.\x94 Lady Casterley\x92s eyes gleamed maliciously. \x93You tell me she\x92s so nice,\x94 she said. \x93No nice unencumbered woman lies in bed after half-past seven. Which is the very shortest way? No, Ann, we can\x92t take you.\x94 Little Ann, after regarding her great-grandmother rather too intently, replied: \x93Well, I can\x92t come, you see, because I\x92ve got to go.\x94 \x93Very well,\x94 said Lady Casterley, \x93then trot along.\x94 Little Ann, tightening her lips, walked to the next colony of Nemesia, and bent over the colonists with concentration, showing clearly that she had found something more interesting than had yet been encountered. \x93Ha!\x94 said Lady Casterley, and led on at her brisk pace towards the avenue. All the way down the drive she discoursed on woodcraft, glancing sharply at the trees. Forestry\x97she said-like building, and all other pursuits which required, faith and patient industry, was a lost art in this second-hand age. She had made Barbara\x92s grandfather practise it, so that at Catton (her country place) and even at Ravensham, the trees were worth looking at. Here, at Monkland, they were monstrously neglected. To have the finest Italian cypress in the country, for example, and not take more care of it, was a downright scandal! Barbara listened, smiling lazily. Granny was so amusing in her energy and precision, and her turns of speech, so deliberately homespun, as if she\x97than whom none could better use a stiff and polished phrase, or the refinements of the French language\x97were determined to take what liberties she liked. To the girl, haunted still by the feeling that she could fly, almost drunk on the sweetness of the air that summer morning, it seemed funny that anyone should be like that. Then for a second she saw her grandmother\x92s face in repose, off guard, grim with anxious purpose, as if questioning its hold on life; and in one of those flashes of intuition which come to women\x97even when young and conquering like Barbara\x97she felt suddenly sorry, as though she had caught sight of the pale spectre never yet seen by her. \x93Poor old dear,\x94 she thought; \x93what a pity to be old!\x94 But they had entered the footpath crossing three long meadows which climbed up towards Mrs. Noel\x92s. It was so golden-sweet here amongst the million tiny saffron cups frosted with lingering dewshine; there was such flying glory in the limes and ash-trees; so delicate a scent from the late whins and may-flower; and, on every tree a greybird calling to be sorry was not possible! In the far corner of the first field a chestnut mare was standing, with ears pricked at some distant sound whose charm she alone perceived. On viewing the intruders, she laid those ears back, and a little vicious star gleamed out at the corner of her eye. They passed her and entered the second field. Half way across, Barbara said quietly: \x93Granny, that\x92s a bull!\x94 It was indeed an enormous bull, who had been standing behind a clump of bushes. He was moving slowly towards them, still distant about two hundred yards; a great red beast, with the huge development of neck and front which makes the bull, of all living creatures, the symbol of brute force. Lady Casterley envisaged him severely. \x93I dislike bulls,\x94 she said; \x93I think I must walk backward.\x94 \x93You can\x92t; it\x92s too uphill.\x94 \x93I am not going to turn back,\x94 said Lady Casterley. \x93The bull ought not to be here. Whose fault is it? I shall speak to someone. Stand still and look at him. We must prevent his coming nearer.\x94 They stood still and looked at the bull, who continued to approach. \x93It doesn\x92t stop him,\x94 said Lady Casterley. \x93We must take no notice. Give me your arm, my dear; my legs feel rather funny.\x94 Barbara put her arm round the little figure. They walked on. \x93I have not been used to bulls lately,\x94 said Lady Casterley. The bull came nearer. \x93Granny,\x94 said Barbara, \x93you must go quietly on to the stile. When you\x92re over I\x92ll come too.\x94 \x93Certainly not,\x94 said Lady Casterley, \x93we will go together. Take no notice of him; I have great faith in that.\x94 \x93Granny darling, you must do as I say, please; I remember this bull, he is one of ours.\x94 At those rather ominous words Lady Casterley gave her a sharp glance. \x93I shall not go,\x94 she said. \x93My legs feel quite strong now. We can run, if necessary.\x94 \x93So can the bull,\x94 said Barbara. \x93I\x92m not going to leave you,\x94 muttered Lady Casterley. \x93If he turns vicious I shall talk to him. He won\x92t touch me. You can run faster than I; so that\x92s settled.\x94 \x93Don\x92t be absurd, dear,\x94 answered Barbara; \x93I am not afraid of bulls.\x94 Lady Casterley flashed a look at her which had a gleam of amusement. \x93I can feel you,\x94 she said; \x93you\x92re just as trembly as I am.\x94 The bull was now distant some eighty yards, and they were still quite a hundred from the stile. \x93Granny,\x94 said Barbara, \x93if you don\x92t go on as I tell you, I shall just leave you, and go and meet him! You mustn\x92t be obstinate!\x94 Lady Casterley\x92s answer was to grip her granddaughter round the waist; the nervous force of that thin arm was surprising. \x93You will do nothing of the sort,\x94 she said. \x93I refuse to have anything more to do with this bull; I shall simply pay no attention.\x94 The bull now began very slowly ambling towards them. \x93Take no notice,\x94 said Lady Casterley, who was walking faster than she had ever walked before. \x93The ground is level now,\x94 said Barbara; \x93can you run?\x94 \x93I think so,\x94 gasped Lady Casterley; and suddenly she found herself half-lifted from the ground, and, as it were, flying towards the stile. She heard a noise behind; then Barbara\x92s voice: \x93We must stop. He\x92s on us. Get behind me.\x94 She felt herself caught and pinioned by two arms that seemed set on the wrong way. Instinct, and a general softness told her that she was back to back with her granddaughter. \x93Let me go!\x94 she gasped; \x93let me go!\x94 And suddenly she felt herself being propelled by that softness forward towards the stile. \x93Shoo!\x94 she said; \x93shoo!\x94 \x93Granny,\x94 Barbara\x92s voice came, calm and breathless, \x93don\x92t! You only excite him! Are we near the stile?\x94 \x93Ten yards,\x94 panted Lady Casterley. \x93Look out, then!\x94 There was a sort of warm flurry round her, a rush, a heave, a scramble; she was beyond the stile. The bull and Barbara, a yard or two apart, were just the other side. Lady Casterley raised her handkerchief and fluttered it. The bull looked up; Barbara, all legs and arms, came slipping down beside her. Without wasting a moment Lady Casterley leaned forward and addressed the bull: \x93You awful brute!\x94 she said; \x93I will have you well flogged.\x94 Gently pawing the ground, the bull snuffled. \x93Are you any the worse, child?\x94 \x93Not a scrap,\x94 said Barbara\x92s serene, still breathless voice. Lady Casterley put up her hands, and took the girl\x92s face between them. \x93What legs you have!\x94 she said. \x93Give me a kiss!\x94 Having received a hot, rather quivering kiss, she walked on, holding somewhat firmly to Barbara\x92s arm. \x93As for that bull,\x94 she murmured, \x93the brute\x97to attack women!\x94 Barbara looked down at her. \x93Granny,\x94 she said, \x93are you sure you\x92re not shaken?\x94 Lady Casterley, whose lips were quivering, pressed them together very hard. \x93Not a b-b-bit.\x94 \x93Don\x92t you think,\x94 said Barbara, \x93that we had better go back, at once\x97the other way?\x94 \x93Certainly not. There are no more bulls, I suppose, between us and this woman?\x94 \x93But are you fit to see her?\x94 Lady Casterley passed her handkerchief over her lips, to remove their quivering. \x93Perfectly,\x94 she answered. \x93Then, dear,\x94 said Barbara, \x93stand still a minute, while I dust you behind.\x94 This having been accomplished, they proceeded in the direction of Mrs. Noel\x92s cottage. At sight of it, Lady Casterley said: \x93I shall put my foot down. It\x92s out of the question for a man of Miltoun\x92s prospects. I look forward to seeing him Prime Minister some day.\x94 Hearing Barbara\x92s voice murmuring above her, she paused: \x93What\x92s that you say?\x94 \x93I said: What is the use of our being what we are, if we can\x92t love whom we like?\x94 \x93Love!\x94 said Lady Casterley; \x93I was talking of marriage.\x94 \x93I am glad you admit the distinction, Granny dear.\x94 \x93You are pleased to be sarcastic,\x94 said Lady Casterley. \x93Listen to me! It\x92s the greatest nonsense to suppose that people in our caste are free to do as they please. The sooner you realize that, the better, Babs. I am talking to you seriously. The preservation of our position as a class depends on our observing certain decencies. What do you imagine would happen to the Royal Family if they were allowed to marry as they liked? All this marrying with Gaiety girls, and American money, and people with pasts, and writers, and so forth, is most damaging. There\x92s far too much of it, and it ought to be stopped. It may be tolerated for a few cranks, or silly young men, and these new women, but for Eustace\x97\x94 Lady Casterley paused again, and her fingers pinched Barbara\x92s arm, \x93or for you\x97there\x92s only one sort of marriage possible. As for Eustace, I shall speak to this good lady, and see that he doesn\x92t get entangled further.\x94 Absorbed in the intensity of her purpose, she did not observe a peculiar little smile playing round Barbara\x92s lips. \x93You had better speak to Nature, too, Granny!\x94 Lady Casterley stopped short, and looked up in her granddaughter\x92s face. \x93Now what do you mean by that?\x94 she said \x93Tell me!\x94 But noticing that Barbara\x92s lips had closed tightly, she gave her arm a hard\x97if unintentional-pinch, and walked on. CHAPTER XII Lady Casterley\x92s rather malicious diagnosis of Audrey Noel was correct. The unencumbered woman was up and in her garden when Barbara and her grandmother appeared at the Wicket gate; but being near the lime-tree at the far end she did not hear the rapid colloquy which passed between them. \x93You are going to be good, Granny?\x94 \x93As to that\x97it will depend.\x94 \x93You promised.\x94 \x93H\x92m!\x94 Lady Casterley could not possibly have provided herself with a better introduction than Barbara, whom Mrs. Noel never met without the sheer pleasure felt by a sympathetic woman when she sees embodied in someone else that \x91joy in life\x92 which Fate has not permitted to herself. She came forward with her head a little on one side, a trick of hers not at all affected, and stood waiting. The unembarrassed Barbara began at once: \x93We\x92ve just had an encounter with a bull. This is my grandmother, Lady Casterley.\x94 The little old lady\x92s demeanour, confronted with this very pretty face and figure was a thought less autocratic and abrupt than usual. Her shrewd eyes saw at once that she had no common adventuress to deal with. She was woman of the world enough, too, to know that \x91birth\x92 was not what it had been in her young days, that even money was rather rococo, and that good looks, manners, and a knowledge of literature, art, and music (and this woman looked like one of that sort), were often considered socially more valuable. She was therefore both wary and affable. \x93How do you do?\x94 she said. \x93I have heard of you. May we sit down for a minute in your garden? The bull was a wretch!\x94 But even in speaking, she was uneasily conscious that Mrs. Noel\x92s clear eyes were seeing very well what she had come for. The look in them indeed was almost cynical; and in spite of her sympathetic murmurs, she did not somehow seem to believe in the bull. This was disconcerting. Why had Barbara condescended to mention the wretched brute? And she decided to take him by the horns. \x93Babs,\x94 she said, \x93go to the Inn and order me a \x91fly.\x92 I shall drive back, I feel very shaky,\x94 and, as Mrs. Noel offered to send her maid, she added: \x93No, no, my granddaughter will go.\x94 Barbara having departed with a quizzical look, Lady Casterley patted the rustic seat, and said: \x93Do come and sit down, I want to talk to you:\x94 Mrs. Noel obeyed. And at once Lady Casterley perceived that \x93she had a most difficult task before her. She had not expected a woman with whom one could take no liberties. Those clear dark eyes, and that soft, perfectly graceful manner\x97to a person so \x91sympathetic\x92 one should be able to say anything, and\x97one couldn\x92t! It was awkward. And suddenly she noticed that Mrs. Noel was sitting perfectly upright, as upright\x97more upright, than she was herself. A bad, sign\x97a very bad sign! Taking out her handkerchief, she put it to her lips. \x93I suppose you think,\x94 she said, \x93that we were not chased by a bull.\x94 \x93I am sure you were.\x94 \x93Indeed! Ah! But I\x92ve something else to talk to you about.\x94 Mrs. Noel\x92s face quivered back, as a flower might when it was going to be plucked; and again Lady Casterley put her handkerchief to her lips. This time she rubbed them hard. There was nothing to come off; to do so, therefore, was a satisfaction. \x93I am an old woman,\x94 she said, \x93and you mustn\x92t mind what I say.\x94 Mrs. Noel did not answer, but looked straight at her visitor; to whom it seemed suddenly that this was another person. What was it about that face, staring at her! In a weird way it reminded her of a child that one had hurt\x97with those great eyes and that soft hair, and the mouth thin, in a line, all of a sudden. And as if it had been jerked out of her, she said: \x93I don\x92t want to hurt you, my dear. It\x92s about my grandson, of course.\x94 But Mrs. Noel made neither sign nor motion; and the feeling of irritation which so rapidly attacks the old when confronted by the unexpected, came to Lady Casterley\x92s aid. \x93His name,\x94 she said, \x93is being coupled with yours in a way that\x92s doing him a great deal of harm. You don\x92t wish to injure him, I\x92m sure.\x94 Mrs. Noel shook her head, and Lady Casterley went on: \x93I don\x92t know what they\x92re not saying since the evening your friend Mr. Courtier hurt his knee. Miltoun has been most unwise. You had not perhaps realized that.\x94 Mrs. Noel\x92s answer was bitterly distinct: \x93I didn\x92t know anyone was sufficiently interested in my doings.\x94 Lady Casterley suffered a gesture of exasperation to escape her. \x93Good heavens!\x94 she said; \x93every common person is interested in a woman whose position is anomalous. Living alone as you do, and not a widow, you\x92re fair game for everybody, especially in the country.\x94 Mrs. Noel\x92s sidelong glance, very clear and cynical, seemed to say: \x93Even for you.\x94 \x93I am not entitled to ask your story,\x94 Lady Casterley went on, \x93but if you make mysteries you must expect the worst interpretation put on them. My grandson is a man of the highest principle; he does not see things with the eyes of the world, and that should have made you doubly careful not to compromise him, especially at a time like this.\x94 Mrs. Noel smiled. This smile startled Lady Casterley; it seemed, by concealing everything, to reveal depths of strength and subtlety. Would the woman never show her hand? And she said abruptly: \x93Anything serious, of course, is out of the question.\x94 \x93Quite.\x94 That word, which of all others seemed the right one, was spoken so that Lady Casterley did not know in the least what it meant. Though occasionally employing irony, she detested it in others. No woman should be allowed to use it as a weapon! But in these days, when they were so foolish as to want votes, one never knew what women would be at. This particular woman, however, did not look like one of that sort. She was feminine\x97very feminine\x97the sort of creature that spoiled men by being too nice to them. And though she had come determined to find out all about everything and put an end to it, she saw Barbara re-entering the wicket gate with considerable relief. \x93I am ready to walk home now,\x94 she said. And getting up from the rustic seat, she made Mrs. Noel a satirical little bow. \x93Thank you for letting me rest. Give me your arm, child.\x94 Barbara gave her arm, and over her shoulder threw a swift smile at Mrs. Noel, who did not answer it, but stood looking quietly after them, her eyes immensely dark and large. Out in the lane Lady Casterley walked on, very silent, digesting her emotions. \x93What about the \x91fly,\x92 Granny?\x94 \x93What \x91fly\x92?\x94 \x93The one you told me to order.\x94 \x93You don\x92t mean to say that you took me seriously?\x94 \x93No,\x94 said Barbara. \x93Ha!\x94 They proceeded some little way farther before Lady Casterley said suddenly: \x93She is deep.\x94 \x93And dark,\x94 said Barbara. \x93I am afraid you were not good!\x94 Lady Casterley glanced upwards. \x93I detest this habit,\x94 she said, \x93amongst you young people, of taking nothing seriously. Not even bulls,\x94 she added, with a grim smile. Barbara threw back her head and sighed. \x93Nor \x91flys,\x92\x94 she said. Lady Casterley saw that she had closed her eyes and opened her lips. And she thought: \x93She\x92s a very beautiful girl. I had no idea she was so beautiful\x97but too big!\x94 And she added aloud: \x93Shut your mouth! You will get one down!\x94 They spoke no more till they had entered the avenue; then Lady Casterley said sharply: \x93Who is this coming down the drive?\x94 \x93Mr. Courtier, I think.\x94 \x93What does he mean by it, with that leg?\x94 \x93He is coming to talk to you, Granny.\x94 Lady Casterley stopped short. \x93You are a cat,\x94 she said; \x93a sly cat. Now mind, Babs, I won\x92t have it!\x94 \x93No, darling,\x94 murmured Barbara; \x93you shan\x92t have it\x97I\x92ll take him off your hands.\x94 \x93What does your mother mean,\x94 stammered Lady Casterley, \x93letting you grow up like this! You\x92re as bad as she was at your age!\x94 \x93Worse!\x94 said Barbara. \x93I dreamed last night that I could fly!\x94 \x93If you try that,\x94 said Lady Casterley grimly, \x93you\x92ll soon come to grief. Good-morning, sir; you ought to be in bed!\x94 Courtier raised his hat. \x93Surely it is not for me to be where you are not!\x94 And he added gloomily: \x93The war scare\x92s dead!\x94 \x93Ah!\x94 said Lady Casterley: \x93your occupation\x92s gone then. You\x92ll go back to London now, I suppose.\x94 Looking suddenly at Barbara she saw that the girl\x92s eyes were half-closed, and that she was smiling; it seemed to Lady Casterley too or was it fancy?\x97that she shook her head. CHAPTER XIII Thanks to Lady Valleys, a patroness of birds, no owl was ever shot on the Monkland Court estate, and those soft-flying spirits of the dusk hooted and hunted, to the great benefit of all except the creeping voles. By every farm, cottage, and field, they passed invisible, quartering the dark air. Their voyages of discovery stretched up on to the moor as far as the wild stone man, whose origin their wisdom perhaps knew. Round Audrey Noel\x92s cottage they were as thick as thieves, for they had just there two habitations in a long, old, holly-grown wall, and almost seemed to be guarding the mistress of that thatched dwelling\x97so numerous were their fluttering rushes, so tenderly prolonged their soft sentinel callings. Now that the weather was really warm, so that joy of life was in the voles, they found those succulent creatures of an extraordinarily pleasant flavour, and on them each pair was bringing up a family of exceptionally fine little owls, very solemn, with big heads, bright large eyes, and wings as yet only able to fly downwards. There was scarcely any hour from noon of the day (for some of them had horns) to the small sweet hours when no one heard them, that they forgot to salute the very large, quiet, wingless owl whom they could espy moving about by day above their mouse-runs, or preening her white and sometimes blue and sometimes grey feathers morning and evening in a large square hole high up in the front wall. And they could not understand at all why no swift depredating graces nor any habit of long soft hooting belonged to that lady-bird. On the evening of the day when she received that early morning call, as soon as dusk had fallen, wrapped in a long thin cloak, with black lace over her dark hair, Audrey Noel herself fluttered out into the lanes, as if to join the grave winged hunters of the invisible night. Those far, continual sounds, not stilled in the country till long after the sun dies, had but just ceased from haunting the air, where the late May-scent clung as close as fragrance clings to a woman\x92s robe. There was just the barking of a dog, the boom of migrating chafers, the song of the stream, and of the owls, to proclaim the beating in the heart of this sweet Night. Nor was there any light by which Night\x92s face could be seen; it was hidden, anonymous; so that when a lamp in a cottage threw a blink over the opposite bank, it was as if some wandering painter had wrought a picture of stones and leaves on the black air, framed it in purple, and left it hanging. Yet, if it could only have been come at, the Night was as full of emotion as this woman who wandered, shrinking away against the banks if anyone passed, stopping to cool her hot face with the dew on the ferns, walking swiftly to console her warm heart. Anonymous Night seeking for a symbol could have found none better than this errant figure, to express its hidden longings, the fluttering, unseen rushes of its dark wings, and all its secret passion of revolt against its own anonymity.... At Monkland Court, save for little Ann, the morning passed but dumbly, everyone feeling that something must be done, and no one knowing what. At lunch, the only allusion to the situation had been Harbinger\x92s inquiry: \x93When does Miltoun return?\x94 He had wired, it seemed, to say that he was motoring down that night. \x93The sooner the better,\x94 Sir William murmured: \x93we\x92ve still a fortnight.\x94 But all had felt from the tone in which he spoke these words, how serious was the position in the eyes of that experienced campaigner. What with the collapse of the war scare, and this canard about Mrs. Noel, there was indeed cause for alarm. The afternoon post brought a letter from Lord Valleys marked Express. Lady Valleys opened it with a slight grimace, which deepened as she read. Her handsome, florid face wore an expression of sadness seldom seen there. There was, in fact, more than a touch of dignity in her reception of the unpalatable news. \x93Eustace declares his intention of marrying this Mrs. Noel\x94\x97so ran her husband\x92s letter\x97\x93I know, unfortunately, of no way in which I can prevent him. If you can discover legitimate means of dissuasion, it would be well to use them. My dear, it\x92s the very devil.\x94 It was the very devil! For, if Miltoun had already made up his mind to marry her, without knowledge of the malicious rumour, what would not be his determination now? And the woman of the world rose up in Lady Valleys. This marriage must not come off. It was contrary to almost every instinct of one who was practical not only by character, but by habit of life and training. Her warm and full-blooded nature had a sneaking sympathy with love and pleasure, and had she not been practical, she might have found this side of her a serious drawback to the main tenor of a life so much in view of the public eye. Her consciousness of this danger in her own case made her extremely alive to the risks of an undesirable connection\x97especially if it were a marriage\x97to any public man. At the same time the mother-heart in her was stirred. Eustace had never been so deep in her affection as Bertie, still he was her first-born; and in face of news which meant that he was lost to her\x97for this must indeed be \x91the marriage of two minds\x92 (or whatever that quotation was)\x97she felt strangely jealous of a woman, who had won her son\x92s love, when she herself had never won it. The aching of this jealousy gave her face for a moment almost a spiritual expression, then passed away into impatience. Why should he marry her? Things could be arranged. People spoke of it already as an illicit relationship; well then, let people have what they had invented. If the worst came to the worst, this was not the only constituency in England; and a dissolution could not be far off. Better anything than a marriage which would handicap him all his life! But would it be so great a handicap? After all, beauty counted for much! If only her story were not too conspicuous! But what was her story? Not to know it was absurd! That was the worst of people who were not in Society, it was so difficult to find out! And there rose in her that almost brutal resentment, which ferments very rapidly in those who from their youth up have been hedged round with the belief that they and they alone are the whole of the world. In this mood Lady Valleys passed the letter to her daughters. They read, and in turn handed it to Bertie, who in silence returned it to his mother. But that evening, in the billiard-room, having manoeuvred to get him to herself, Barbara said to Courtier: \x93I wonder if you will answer me a question, Mr. Courtier?\x94 \x93If I may, and can.\x94 Her low-cut dress was of yew-green, with, little threads of flame-colour, matching her hair, so that there was about her a splendour of darkness and whiteness and gold, almost dazzling; and she stood very still, leaning back against the lighter green of the billiard-table, grasping its edge so tightly that the smooth strong backs of her hands quivered. \x93We have just heard that Miltoun is going to ask Mrs. Noel to marry him. People are never mysterious, are they, without good reason? I wanted you to tell me\x97who is she?\x94 \x93I don\x92t think I quite grasp the situation,\x94 murmured Courtier. \x93You said\x97to marry him?\x94 Seeing that she had put out her hand, as if begging for the truth, he added: \x93How can your brother marry her\x97she\x92s married!\x94 \x93Oh!\x94 \x93I\x92d no idea you didn\x92t know that much.\x94 \x93We thought there was a divorce.\x94 The expression of which mention has been made\x97that peculiar white-hot sardonically jolly look\x97visited Courtier\x92s face at once. \x93Hoist with their own petard! The usual thing. Let a pretty woman live alone\x97the tongues of men will do the rest.\x94 \x93It was not so bad as that,\x94 said Barbara dryly; \x93they said she had divorced her husband.\x94 Caught out thus characteristically riding past the hounds Courtier bit his lips. \x93You had better hear the story now. Her father was a country parson, and a friend of my father\x92s; so that I\x92ve known her from a child. Stephen Lees Noel was his curate. It was a \x91snap\x92 marriage\x97she was only twenty, and had met hardly any men. Her father was ill and wanted to see her settled before he died. Well, she found out almost directly, like a good many other people, that she\x92d made an utter mistake.\x94 Barbara came a little closer. \x93What was the man like?\x94 \x93Not bad in his way, but one of those narrow, conscientious pig-headed fellows who make the most trying kind of husband\x97bone egoistic. A parson of that type has no chance at all. Every mortal thing he has to do or say helps him to develop his worst points. The wife of a man like that\x92s no better than a slave. She began to show the strain of it at last; though she\x92s the sort who goes on till she snaps. It took him four years to realize. Then, the question was, what were they to do? He\x92s a very High Churchman, with all their feeling about marriage; but luckily his pride was wounded. Anyway, they separated two years ago; and there she is, left high and dry. People say it was her fault. She ought to have known her own mind\x97at twenty! She ought to have held on and hidden it up somehow. Confound their thick-skinned charitable souls, what do they know of how a sensitive woman suffers? Forgive me, Lady Barbara\x97I get hot over this.\x94 He was silent; then seeing her eyes fixed on him, went on: \x93Her mother died when she was born, her father soon after her marriage. She\x92s enough money of her own, luckily, to live on quietly. As for him, he changed his parish and runs one somewhere in the Midlands. One\x92s sorry for the poor devil, too, of course! They never see each other; and, so far as I know, they don\x92t correspond. That, Lady Barbara, is the simple history.\x94 Barbara, said, \x93Thank you,\x94 and turned away; and he heard her mutter: \x93What a shame!\x94 But he could not tell whether it was Mrs. Noel\x92s fate, or the husband\x92s fate, or the thought of Miltoun that had moved her to those words. She puzzled him by her self-possession, so almost hard, her way of refusing to show feeling.\x92 Yet what a woman she would make if the drying curse of high-caste life were not allowed to stereotype and shrivel her! If enthusiasm were suffered to penetrate and fertilize her soul! She reminded him of a great tawny lily. He had a vision of her, as that flower, floating, freed of roots and the mould of its cultivated soil, in the liberty of the impartial air. What a passionate and noble thing she might become! What radiance and perfume she would exhale! A spirit Fleur-de-Lys! Sister to all the noble flowers of light that inhabited the wind! Leaning in the deep embrasure of his window, he looked at anonymous Night. He could hear the owls hoot, and feel a heart beating out there somewhere in the darkness, but there came no answer to his wondering. Would she\x97this great tawny lily of a girl\x97ever become unconscious of her environment, not in manner merely, but in the very soul, so that she might be just a woman, breathing, suffering, loving, and rejoicing with the poet soul of all mankind? Would she ever be capable of riding out with the little company of big hearts, naked of advantage? Courtier had not been inside a church for twenty years, having long felt that he must not enter the mosques of his country without putting off the shoes of freedom, but he read the Bible, considering it a very great poem. And the old words came haunting him: \x91Verily I say unto you, It is harder for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of Heaven.\x92 And now, looking into the Night, whose darkness seemed to hold the answer to all secrets, he tried to read the riddle of this girl\x92s future, with which there seemed so interwoven that larger enigma, how far the spirit can free itself, in this life, from the matter that encompasseth. The Night whispered suddenly, and low down, as if rising from the sea, came the moon, dropping a wan robe of light till she gleamed out nude against the sky-curtain. Night was no longer anonymous. There in the dusky garden the statue of Diana formed slowly before his eyes, and behind her\x97as it were, her temple\x97rose the tall spire of the cypress tree. CHAPTER XIV A copy of the Bucklandbury News, containing an account of his evening adventure, did not reach Miltoun till he was just starting on his return journey. It came marked with blue pencil together with a note. \x93MY DEAR EUSTACE, \x93The enclosed\x97however unwarranted and impudent\x97requires attention. But we shall do nothing till you come back. \x93Yours ever, \x93WILLIAM SHROPTON.\x94 The effect on Miltoun might perhaps have been different had he not been so conscious of his intention to ask Audrey Noel to be his wife; but in any circumstances it is doubtful whether he would have done more than smile, and tear the paper up. Truly that sort of thing had so little power to hurt or disturb him personally, that he was incapable of seeing how it could hurt or disturb others. If those who read it were affected, so much the worse for them. He had a real, if unobtrusive, contempt for groundlings, of whatever class; and it never entered his head to step an inch out of his course in deference to their vagaries. Nor did it come home to him that Mrs. Noel, wrapped in the glamour which he cast about her, could possibly suffer from the meanness of vulgar minds. Shropton\x92s note, indeed, caused him the more annoyance of those two documents. It was like his brother-in-law to make much of little! He hardly dozed at all during his swift journey through the sleeping country; nor when he reached his room at Monkland did he go to bed. He had the wonderful, upborne feeling of man on the verge of achievement. His spirit and senses were both on fire\x97for that was the quality of this woman, she suffered no part of him to sleep, and he was glad of her exactions. He drank some tea; went out, and took a path up to the moor. It was not yet eight o\x92clock when he reached the top of the nearest tor. And there, below him, around, and above, was a land and sky transcending even his exaltation. It was like a symphony of great music; or the nobility of a stupendous mind laid bare; it was God up there, in His many moods. Serenity was spread in the middle heavens, blue, illimitable, and along to the East, three huge clouds, like thoughts brooding over the destinies below, moved slowly toward the sea, so that great shadows filled the valleys. And the land that lay under all the other sky was gleaming, and quivering with every colour, as it were, clothed with the divine smile. The wind, from the North, whereon floated the white birds of the smaller clouds, had no voice, for it was above barriers, utterly free. Before Miltoun, turning to this wind, lay the maze of the lower lands, the misty greens, rose pinks, and browns of the fields, and white and grey dots and strokes of cottages and church towers, fading into the blue veil of distance, confined by a far range of hills. Behind him there was nothing but the restless surface of the moor, coloured purplish-brown. On that untamed sea of graven wildness could be seen no ship of man, save one, on the far horizon\x97the grim hulk, Dartmoor Prison. There was no sound, no scent, and it seemed to Miltoun as if his spirit had left his body, and become part of the solemnity of God. Yet, as he stood there, with his head bared, that strange smile which haunted him in moments of deep feeling, showed that he had not surrendered to the Universal, that his own spirit was but being fortified, and that this was the true and secret source of his delight. He lay down in a scoop of the stones. The sun entered there, but no wind, so that a dry sweet scent exuded from the young shoots of heather. That warmth and perfume crept through the shield of his spirit, and stole into his blood; ardent images rose before him, the vision of an unending embrace. Out of an embrace sprang Life, out of that the World was made, this World, with its innumerable forms, and natures\x97no two alike! And from him and her would spring forms to take their place in the great pattern. This seemed wonderful, and right-for they would be worthy forms, who would hand on those traditions which seemed to him so necessary and great. And then there broke on him one of those delirious waves of natural desire, against which he had so often fought, so often with great pain conquered. He got up, and ran downhill, leaping over the stones, and the thicker clumps of heather. Audrey Noel, too, had been early astir, though she had gone late enough to bed. She dressed languidly, but very carefully, being one of those women who put on armour against Fate, because they are proud, and dislike the thought that their sufferings should make others suffer; because, too, their bodies are to them as it were sacred, having been given them in trust, to cause delight. When she had finished, she looked at herself in the glass rather more distrustfully than usual. She felt that her sort of woman was at a discount in these days, and being sensitive, she was never content either with her appearance, or her habits. But, for all that, she went on behaving in unsatisfactory ways, because she incorrigibly loved to look as charming as she could; and even if no one were going to see her, she never felt that she looked charming enough. She was\x97as Lady Casterley had shrewdly guessed\x97the kind of woman who spoils men by being too nice to them; of no use to those who wish women to assert themselves; yet having a certain passive stoicism, very disconcerting. With little or no power of initiative, she would do what she was set to do with a thoroughness that would shame an initiator; temperamentally unable to beg anything of anybody, she required love as a plant requires water; she could give herself completely, yet remain oddly incorruptible; in a word, hopeless, and usually beloved of those who thought her so. With all this, however, she was not quite what is called a \x91sweet woman\x97a phrase she detested\x97for there was in her a queer vein of gentle cynicism. She \x91saw\x92 with extraordinary clearness, as if she had been born in Italy and still carried that clear dry atmosphere about her soul. She loved glow and warmth and colour; such mysticism as she felt was pagan; and she had few aspirations\x97sufficient to her were things as they showed themselves to be. This morning, when she had made herself smell of geraniums, and fastened all the small contrivances that hold even the best of women together, she went downstairs to her little dining-room, set the spirit lamp going, and taking up her newspaper, stood waiting to make tea. It was the hour of the day most dear to her. If the dew had been brushed off her life, it was still out there every morning on the face of Nature, and on the faces of her flowers; there was before her all the pleasure of seeing how each of those little creatures in the garden had slept; how many children had been born since the Dawn; who was ailing, and needed attention. There was also the feeling, which renews itself every morning in people who live lonely lives, that they are not lonely, until, the day wearing on, assures them of the fact. Not that she was idle, for she had obtained through Courtier the work of reviewing music in a woman\x92s paper, for which she was intuitively fitted. This, her flowers, her own music, and the affairs of certain families of cottagers, filled nearly all her time. And she asked no better fate than to have every minute occupied, having that passion for work requiring no initiation, which is natural to the owners of lazy minds. Suddenly she dropped her newspaper, went to the bowl of flowers on the breakfast-table, and plucked forth two stalks of lavender; holding them away from her, she went out into the garden, and flung them over the wall. This strange immolation of those two poor sprigs, born so early, gathered and placed before her with such kind intention by her maid, seemed of all acts the least to be expected of one who hated to hurt people\x92s feelings, and whose eyes always shone at the sight of flowers. But in truth the smell of lavender\x97that scent carried on her husband\x92s handkerchief and clothes\x97still affected her so strongly that she could not bear to be in a room with it. As nothing else did, it brought before her one, to live with whom had slowly become torture. And freed by that scent, the whole flood of memory broke in on her. The memory of three years when her teeth had been set doggedly, on her discovery that she was chained to unhappiness for life; the memory of the abrupt end, and of her creeping away to let her scorched nerves recover. Of how during the first year of this release which was not freedom, she had twice changed her abode, to get away from her own story\x97not because she was ashamed of it, but because it reminded her of wretchedness. Of how she had then come to Monkland, where the quiet life had slowly given her elasticity again. And then of her meeting with Miltoun; the unexpected delight of that companionship; the frank enjoyment of the first four months. And she remembered all her secret rejoicing, her silent identification of another life with her own, before she acknowledged or even suspected love. And just three weeks ago now, helping to tie up her roses, he had touched her, and she had known. But even then, until the night of Courtier\x92s accident, she had not dared to realize. More concerned now for him than for herself, she asked herself a thousand times if she had been to blame. She had let him grow fond of her, a woman out of court, a dead woman! An unpardonable sin! Yet surely that depended on what she was prepared to give! And she was frankly ready to give everything, and ask for nothing. He knew her position, he had told her that he knew. In her love for him she gloried, would continue to glory; would suffer for it without regret. Miltoun was right in believing that newspaper gossip was incapable of hurting her, though her reasons for being so impervious were not what he supposed. She was not, like him, secured from pain because such insinuations about the private affairs of others were mean and vulgar and beneath notice; it had not as yet occurred to her to look at the matter in so lofty and general a light; she simply was not hurt, because she was already so deeply Miltoun\x92s property in spirit, that she was almost glad that they should assign him all the rest of her. But for Miltoun\x92s sake she was disturbed to the soul. She had tarnished his shield in the eyes of men; and (for she was oddly practical, and saw things in very clear proportion) perhaps put back his career, who knew how many years! She sat down to drink her tea. Not being a crying woman, she suffered quietly. She felt that Miltoun would be coming to her. She did not know at all what she should say when he did come. He could not care for her so much as she cared for him! He was a man; men soon forget! Ah! but he was not like most men. One could not look at his eyes without feeling that he could suffer terribly! In all this her own reputation concerned her not at all. Life, and her clear way of looking at things, had rooted in her the conviction that to a woman the preciousness of her reputation was a fiction invented by men entirely for man\x92s benefit; a second-hand fetish insidiously, inevitably set-up by men for worship, in novels, plays, and law-courts. Her instinct told her that men could not feel secure in the possession of their women unless they could believe that women set tremendous store by sexual reputation. What they wanted to believe, that they did believe! But she knew otherwise. Such great-minded women as she had met or read of had always left on her the impression that reputation for them was a matter of the spirit, having little to do with sex. From her own feelings she knew that reputation, for a simple woman, meant to stand well in the eyes of him or her whom she loved best. For worldly women\x97and there were so many kinds of those, besides the merely fashionable\x97she had always noted that its value was not intrinsic, but commercial; not a crown of dignity, but just a marketable asset. She did not dread in the least what people might say of her friendship with Miltoun; nor did she feel at all that her indissoluble marriage forbade her loving him. She had secretly felt free as soon as she had discovered that she had never really loved her husband; she had only gone on dutifully until the separation, from sheer passivity, and because it was against her nature to cause pain to anyone. The man who was still her husband was now as dead to her as if he had never been born. She could not marry again, it was true; but she could and did love. If that love was to be starved and die away, it would not be because of any moral scruples. She opened her paper languidly; and almost the first words she read, under the heading of Election News, were these: \x91Apropos of the outrage on Mr. Courtier, we are requested to state that the lady who accompanied Lord Miltoun to the rescue of that gentleman was Mrs. Lees Noel, wife of the Rev. Stephen Lees Noel, vicar of Clathampton, Warwickshire.\x92 This dubious little daub of whitewash only brought a rather sad smile to her lips. She left her tea, and went out into the air. There at the gate was Miltoun coming in. Her heart leaped. But she went forward quietly, and greeted him with cast-down eyes, as if nothing were out of the ordinary. CHAPTER XV Exaltation had not left Miltoun. His sallow face was flushed, his eyes glowed with a sort of beauty; and Audrey Noel who, better than most women, could read what was passing behind a face, saw those eyes with the delight of a moth fluttering towards a lamp. But in a very unemotional voice she said: \x93So you have come to breakfast. How nice of you!\x94 It was not in Miltoun to observe the formalities of attack. Had he been going to fight a duel there would have been no preliminary, just a look, a bow, and the swords crossed. So in this first engagement of his with the soul of a woman! He neither sat down nor suffered her to sit, but stood looking intently into her face, and said: \x93I love you.\x94 Now that it had come, with this disconcerting swiftness, she was strangely calm, and unashamed. The elation of knowing for sure that she was loved was like a wand waving away all tremors, stilling them to sweetness. Since nothing could take away that knowledge, it seemed that she could never again be utterly unhappy. Then, too, in her nature, so deeply, unreasoningly incapable of perceiving the importance of any principle but love, there was a secret feeling of assurance, of triumph. He did love her! And she, him! Well! And suddenly panic-stricken, lest he should take back those words, she put her hand up to his breast, and said: \x93And I love you.\x94 The feel of his arms round her, the strength and passion of that moment, were so terribly sweet, that she died to thought, just looking up at him, with lips parted and eyes darker with the depth of her love than he had ever dreamed that eyes could be. The madness of his own feeling kept him silent. And they stood there, so merged in one another that they knew and cared nothing for any other mortal thing. It was very still in the room; the roses and carnations in the lustre bowl, seeming to know that their mistress was caught up into heaven, had let their perfume steal forth and occupy every cranny of the abandoned air; a hovering bee, too, circled round the lovers\x92 heads, scenting, it seemed, the honey in their hearts. It has been said that Miltoun\x92s face was not unhandsome; for Audrey Noel at this moment when his eyes were so near hers, and his lips touching her, he was transfigured, and had become the spirit of all beauty. And she, with heart beating fast against him, her eyes, half closing from delight, and her hair asking to be praised with its fragrance, her cheeks fainting pale with emotion, and her arms too languid with happiness to embrace him\x97she, to him, was the incarnation of the woman that visits dreams. So passed that moment. The bee ended it; who, impatient with flowers that hid their honey so deep, had entangled himself in Audrey\x92s hair. And then, seeing that words, those dreaded things, were on his lips, she tried to kiss them back. But they came: \x93When will you marry me?\x94 It all swayed a little. And with marvellous rapidity the whole position started up before her. She saw, with preternatural insight, into its nooks and corners. Something he had said one day, when they were talking of the Church view of marriage and divorce, lighted all up. So he had really never known about her! At this moment of utter sickness, she was saved from fainting by her sense of humour\x97her cynicism. Not content to let her be, people\x92s tongues had divorced her; he had believed them! And the crown of irony was that he should want to marry her, when she felt so utterly, so sacredly his, to do what he liked with sans forms or ceremonies. A surge of bitter feeling against the man who stood between her and Miltoun almost made her cry out. That man had captured her before she knew the world or her own soul, and she was tied to him, till by some beneficent chance he drew his last breath when her hair was grey, and her eyes had no love light, and her cheeks no longer grew pale when they were kissed; when twilight had fallen, and the flowers, and bees no longer cared for her. It was that feeling, the sudden revolt of the desperate prisoner, which steeled her to put out her hand, take up the paper, and give it to Miltoun. When he had read the little paragraph, there followed one of those eternities which last perhaps two minutes. He said, then: \x93It\x92s true, I suppose?\x94 And, at her silence, added: \x93I am sorry.\x94 This queer dry saying was so much more terrible than any outcry, that she remained, deprived even of the power of breathing, with her eyes still fixed on Miltoun\x92s face. The smile of the old Cardinal had come up there, and was to her like a living accusation. It seemed strange that the hum of the bees and flies and the gentle swishing of the limetree should still go on outside, insisting that there was a world moving and breathing apart from her, and careless of her misery. Then some of her courage came back, and with it her woman\x92s mute power. It came haunting about her face, perfectly still, about her lips, sensitive and drawn, about her eyes, dark, almost mutinous under their arched brows. She stood, drawing him with silence and beauty. At last he spoke: \x93I have made a foolish mistake, it seems. I believed you were free.\x94 Her lips just moved for the words to pass: \x93I thought you knew. I never, dreamed you would want to marry me.\x94 It seemed to her natural that he should be thinking only of himself, but with the subtlest defensive instinct, she put forward her own tragedy: \x93I suppose I had got too used to knowing I was dead.\x94 \x93Is there no release?\x94 \x93None. We have neither of us done wrong; besides with him, marriage is\x97for ever.\x94 \x93My God!\x94 She had broken his smile, which had been cruel without meaning to be cruel; and with a smile of her own that was cruel too, she said: \x93I didn\x92t know that you believed in release either.\x94 Then, as though she had stabbed herself in stabbing him, her face quivered. He looked at her now, conscious at last that she was suffering. And she felt that he was holding himself in with all his might from taking her again into his arms. Seeing this, the warmth crept back to her lips, and a little light into her eyes, which she kept hidden from him. Though she stood so proudly still, some wistful force was coming from her, as from a magnet, and Miltoun\x92s hands and arms and face twitched as though palsied. This struggle, dumb and pitiful, seemed never to be coming to an end in the little white room, darkened by the thatch of the verandah, and sweet with the scent of pinks and of a wood fire just lighted somewhere out at the back. Then, without a word, he turned and went out. She heard the wicket gate swing to. He was gone. CHAPTER XVI Lord Denis was fly-fishing\x97the weather just too bright to allow the little trout of that shallow, never silent stream to embrace with avidity the small enticements which he threw in their direction. Nevertheless he continued to invite them, exploring every nook of their watery pathway with his soft-swishing line. In a rough suit and battered hat adorned with those artificial and other flies, which infest Harris tweed, he crept along among the hazel bushes and thorn-trees, perfectly happy. Like an old spaniel, who has once gloried in the fetching of hares, rabbits, and all manner of fowl, and is now glad if you will but throw a stick for him, so one, who had been a famous fisher before the Lord, who had harried the waters of Scotland and Norway, Florida and Iceland, now pursued trout no bigger than sardines. The glamour of a thousand memories hallowed the hours he thus spent by that brown water. He fished unhasting, religious, like some good Catholic adding one more to the row of beads already told, as though he would fish himself, gravely, without complaint, into the other world. With each fish caught he experienced a solemn satisfaction. Though he would have liked Barbara with him that morning, he had only looked at her once after breakfast in such a way that she could not see him, and with a dry smile gone off by himself. Down by the stream it was dappled, both cool and warm, windless; the trees met over the river, and there were many stones, forming little basins which held up the ripple, so that the casting of a fly required much cunning. This long dingle ran for miles through the foot-growth of folding hills. It was beloved of jays; but of human beings there were none, except a chicken-farmer\x92s widow, who lived in a house thatched almost to the ground, and made her livelihood by directing tourists, with such cunning that they soon came back to her for tea. It was while throwing a rather longer line than usual to reach a little dark piece of crisp water that Lord Dennis heard the swishing and crackling of someone advancing at full speed. He frowned slightly, feeling for the nerves of his fishes, whom he did not wish startled. The invader was Miltoun, hot, pale, dishevelled, with a queer, hunted look on his face. He stopped on seeing his great-uncle, and instantly assumed the mask of his smile. Lord Dennis was not the man to see what was not intended for him, and he merely said: \x93Well, Eustace!\x94 as he might have spoken, meeting his nephew in the hall of one of his London Clubs. Miltoun, no less polite, murmured: \x93Hope I haven\x92t lost you anything.\x94 Lord Dennis shook his head, and laying his rod on the bank, said: \x93Sit down and have a chat, old fellow. You don\x92t fish, I think?\x94 He had not, in the least, missed the suffering behind Miltoun\x92s mask; his eyes were still good, and there was a little matter of some twenty years\x92 suffering of his own on account of a woman\x97ancient history now\x97which had left him quaintly sensitive, for an old man, to signs of suffering in others. Miltoun would not have obeyed that invitation from anyone else, but there was something about Lord Dennis which people did not resist; his power lay in a dry ironic suavity which could not but persuade people that impoliteness was altogether too new and raw a thing to be indulged in. The two sat side by side on the roots of trees. At first they talked a little of birds, and then were dumb, so dumb that the invisible creatures of the woods consulted together audibly. Lord Dennis broke that silence. \x93This place,\x94 he said, \x93always reminds me of Mark Twain\x92s writings\x97can\x92t tell why, unless it\x92s the ever-greenness. I like the evergreen philosophers, Twain and Meredith. There\x92s no salvation except through courage, though I never could stomach the \x91strong man\x92\x97captain of his soul, Henley and Nietzsche and that sort\x97goes against the grain with me. What do you say, Eustace?\x94 \x93They meant well,\x94 answered Miltoun, \x93but they protested too much.\x94 Lord Dennis moved his head in assent. \x93To be captain of your soul!\x94 continued Miltoun in a bitter voice; \x93it\x92s a pretty phrase!\x94 \x93Pretty enough,\x94 murmured Lord Dennis. Miltoun looked at him. \x93And suitable to you,\x94 he said. \x93No, my dear,\x94 Lord Dennis answered dryly, \x93a long way off that, thank God!\x94 His eyes were fixed intently on the place where a large trout had risen in the stillest toffee-coloured pool. He knew that fellow, a half-pounder at least, and his thoughts began flighting round the top of his head, hovering over the various merits of the flies. His fingers itched too, but he made no movement, and the ash-tree under which he sat let its leaves tremble, as though in sympathy. \x93See that hawk?\x94 said Miltoun. At a height more than level with the tops of the hills a buzzard hawk was stationary in the blue directly over them. Inspired by curiosity at their stillness, he was looking down to see whether they were edible; the upcurved ends of his great wings flirted just once to show that he was part of the living glory of the air\x97a symbol of freedom to men and fishes. Lord Dennis looked at his great-nephew. The boy\x97for what else was thirty to seventy-six?\x97was taking it hard, whatever it might be, taking it very hard! He was that sort\x97ran till he dropped. The worst kind to help\x97the sort that made for trouble\x97that let things gnaw at them! And there flashed before the old man\x92s mind the image of Prometheus devoured by the eagle. It was his favourite tragedy, which he still read periodically, in the Greek, helping himself now and then out of his old lexicon to the meaning of some word which had flown to Erebus. Yes, Eustace was a fellow for the heights and depths! He said quietly: \x93You don\x92t care to talk about it, I suppose?\x94 Miltoun shook his head, and again there was silence. The buzzard hawk having seen them move, quivered his wings like a moth\x92s, and deserted that plane of air. A robin from the dappled warmth of a mossy stone, was regarding them instead. There was another splash in the pool. Lord Dennis said gently: \x93That fellow\x92s risen twice; I believe he\x92d take a \x91Wistman\x92s treasure.\x92\x94 Extracting from his hat its latest fly, and binding it on, he began softly to swish his line. \x93I shall have him yet!\x94 he muttered. But Miltoun had stolen away.... The further piece of information about Mrs. Noel, already known by Barbara, and diffused by the \x91Bucklandbury News\x92, had not become common knowledge at the Court till after Lord Dennis had started out to fish. In combination with the report that Miltoun had arrived and gone out without breakfast, it had been received with mingled feelings. Bertie, Harbinger, and Shropton, in a short conclave, after agreeing that from the point of view of the election it was perhaps better than if she had been a divorcee, were still inclined to the belief that no time was to be lost\x97in doing what, however, they were unable to determine. Apart from the impossibility of knowing how a fellow like Miltoun would take the matter, they were faced with the devilish subtlety of all situations to which the proverb \x91Least said, soonest mended\x92 applies. They were in the presence of that awe-inspiring thing, the power of scandal. Simple statements of simple facts, without moral drawn (to which no legal exception could be taken) laid before the public as pieces of interesting information, or at the worst exposed in perfect good faith, lest the public should blindly elect as their representative one whose private life might not stand the inspection of daylight\x97what could be more justifiable! And yet Miltoun\x92s supporters knew that this simple statement of where he spent his evenings had a poisonous potency, through its power of stimulating that side of the human imagination the most easily excited. They recognized only too well, how strong was a certain primitive desire, especially in rural districts, by yielding to which the world was made to go, and how remarkably hard it, was not to yield to it, and how interesting and exciting to see or hear of others yielding to it, and how (though here, of course, men might differ secretly) reprehensible of them to do so! They recognized, too well, how a certain kind of conscience would appreciate this rumour; and how the puritans would lick their lengthened chops. They knew, too, how irresistible to people of any imagination at all, was the mere combination of a member of a class, traditionally supposed to be inclined to having what it wanted, with a lady who lived alone! As Harbinger said: It was really devilish awkward! For, to take any notice of it would be to make more people than ever believe it true. And yet, that it was working mischief, they felt by the secret voice in their own souls, telling them that they would have believed it if they had not known better. They hung about, waiting for Miltoun to come in. The news was received by Lady Valleys with a sigh of intense relief, and the remark that it was probably another lie. When Barbara confirmed it, she only said: \x93Poor Eustace!\x94 and at once wrote off to her husband to say that \x91Anonyma\x92 was still married, so that the worst fortunately could not happen. Miltoun came in to lunch, but from his face and manner nothing could be guessed. He was a thought more talkative than usual, and spoke of Brabrook\x92s speech\x97some of which he had heard. He looked at Courtier meaningly, and after lunch said to him: \x93Will you come round to my den?\x94 In that room, the old withdrawing-room of the Elizabethan wing\x97where once had been the embroideries, tapestries, and missals of beruffled dames were now books, pamphlets, oak-panels, pipes, fencing gear, and along one wall a collection of Red Indian weapons and ornaments brought back by Miltoun from the United States. High on the wall above these reigned the bronze death-mask of a famous Apache Chief, cast from a plaster taken of the face by a professor of Yale College, who had declared it to be a perfect specimen of the vanishing race. That visage, which had a certain weird resemblance to Dante\x92s, presided over the room with cruel, tragic stoicism. No one could look on it without feeling that, there, the human will had been pushed to its farthest limits of endurance. Seeing it for the first time, Courtier said: \x93Fine thing\x97that! Only wants a soul.\x94 Miltoun nodded: \x93Sit down,\x94 he said. Courtier sat down. There followed one of those silences in which men whose spirits, though different, have a certain bigness in common\x97can say so much to one another: At last Miltoun spoke: \x93I have been living in the clouds, it seems. You are her oldest friend. The immediate question is how to make it easiest for her in face of this miserable rumour!\x94 Not even Courtier himself could have put such whip-lash sting into the word \x91miserable.\x92 He answered: \x93Oh! take no notice of that. Let them stew in their own juice. She won\x92t care.\x94 Miltoun listened, not moving a muscle of his face. \x93Your friends here,\x94 went on Courtier with a touch of contempt, \x93seem in a flutter. Don\x92t let them do anything, don\x92t let them say a word. Treat the thing as it deserves to be treated. It\x92ll die.\x94 Miltoun, however, smiled. \x93I\x92m not sure,\x94 he said, \x93that the consequences will be as you think, but I shall do as you say.\x94 \x93As for your candidature, any man with a spark of generosity in his soul will rally to you because of it.\x94 \x93Possibly,\x94 said Miltoun. \x93It will lose me the election, for all that.\x94 Then, dimly conscious that their last words had revealed the difference of their temperaments and creeds, they stared at one another. \x93No,\x94 said Courtier, \x93I never will believe that people can be so mean!\x94 \x93Until they are.\x94 \x93Anyway, though we get at it in different ways, we agree.\x94 Miltoun leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece, and shading his face with his hand, said: \x93You know her story. Is there any way out of that, for her?\x94 On Courtier\x92s face was the look which so often came when he was speaking for one of his lost causes\x97as if the fumes from a fire in his heart had mounted to his head. \x93Only the way,\x94 he answered calmly, \x93that I should take if I were you.\x94 \x93And that?\x94 \x93The law into your own hands.\x94 Miltoun unshaded his face. His gaze seemed to have to travel from an immense distance before it reached Courtier. He answered: \x93Yes, I thought you would say that.\x94 CHAPTER XVII When everything, that night, was quiet, Barbara, her hair hanging loose outside her dressing gown, slipped from her room into the dim corridor. With bare feet thrust into fur-crowned slippers which made no noise, she stole along looking at door after door. Through a long Gothic window, uncurtained, the mild moonlight was coming. She stopped just where that moonlight fell, and tapped. There came no answer. She opened the door a little way, and said: \x93Are you asleep, Eusty?\x94 There still came no answer, and she went in. The curtains were drawn, but a chink of moonlight peering through fell on the bed. This was empty. Barbara stood uncertain, listening. In the heart of that darkness there seemed to be, not sound, but, as it were, the muffled soul of sound, a sort of strange vibration, like that of a flame noiselessly licking the air. She put her hand to her heart, which beat as though it would leap through the thin silk covering. From what corner of the room was that mute tremor coming? Stealing to the window, she parted the curtains, and stared back into the shadows. There, on the far side, lying on the floor with his arms pressed tightly round his head and his face to the wall, was Miltoun. Barbara let fall the curtains, and stood breathless, with such a queer sensation in her breast as she had never felt; a sense of something outraged-of scarred pride. It was gone at once, in a rush of pity. She stepped forward quickly in the darkness, was visited by fear, and stopped. He had seemed absolutely himself all the evening. A little more talkative, perhaps, a little more caustic than usual. And now to find him like this! There was no great share of reverence in Barbara, but what little she possessed had always been kept for her eldest brother. He had impressed her, from a child, with his aloofness, and she had been proud of kissing him because he never seemed to let anybody else do so. Those caresses, no doubt, had the savour of conquest; his face had been the undiscovered land for her lips. She loved him as one loves that which ministers to one\x92s pride; had for him, too, a touch of motherly protection, as for a doll that does not get on too well with the other dolls; and withal a little unaccustomed awe. Dared she now plunge in on this private agony? Could she have borne that anyone should see herself thus prostrate? He had not heard her, and she tried to regain the door. But a board creaked; she heard him move, and flinging away her fears, said: \x93It\x92s me! Babs!\x94 and dropped on her knees beside him. If it had not been so pitch dark she could never have done that. She tried at once to take his head into her arms, but could not see it, and succeeded indifferently. She could but stroke his arm continually, wondering whether he would hate her ever afterwards, and blessing the darkness, which made it all seem as though it were not happening, yet so much more poignant than if it had happened. Suddenly she felt him slip away from her, and getting up, stole out. After the darkness of that room, the corridor seemed full of grey filmy light, as though dream-spiders had joined the walls with their cobwebs, in which innumerable white moths, so tiny that they could not be seen, were struggling. Small eerie noises crept about. A sudden frightened longing for warmth, and light, and colour came to Barbara. She fled back to her room. But she could not sleep. That terrible mute unseen vibration in the unlighted room-like the noiseless licking of a flame at bland air; the touch of Miltoun\x92s hand, hot as fire against her cheek and neck; the whole tremulous dark episode, possessed her through and through. Thus had the wayward force of Love chosen to manifest itself to her in all its wistful violence. At this fiat sight of the red flower of passion her cheeks burned; up and down her, between the cool sheets, little hot cruel shivers ran; she lay, wide-eyed, staring at the ceiling. She thought, of the woman whom he so loved, and wondered if she too were lying sleepless, flung down on a bare floor, trying to cool her forehead and lips against a cold wall. Not for hours did she fall asleep, and then dreamed of running desperately through fields full of tall spiky asphodel-like flowers, and behind her was running herself. In the morning she dreaded to go down. Could she meet Miltoun now that she knew of the passion in him, and he knew that she knew it? She had her breakfast brought upstairs. Before she had finished Miltoun himself came in. He looked more than usually self-contained, not to say ironic, and only remarked: \x93If you\x92re going to ride you might take this note for me over to old Haliday at Wippincott.\x94 By his coming she knew that he was saying all he ever meant to say about that dark incident. And sympathizing completely with a reticence which she herself felt to be the only possible way out for both of them, Barbara looked at him gratefully, took the note and said: \x93All right!\x94 Then, after glancing once or twice round the room, Miltoun went away. He left her restless, divested of the cloak \x91of course,\x92 in a strange mood of questioning, ready as it were for the sight of the magpie wings of Life, and to hear their quick flutterings. Talk jarred on her that morning, with its sameness and attachment to the facts of the present and the future, its essential concern with the world as it was-she avoided all companionship on her ride. She wanted to be told of things that were not, yet might be, to peep behind the curtain, and see the very spirit of mortal happenings escaped from prison. And this was all so unusual with Barbara, whose body was too perfect, too sanely governed by the flow of her blood not to revel in the moment and the things thereof. She knew it was unusual. After her ride she avoided lunch, and walked out into the lanes. But about two o\x92clock, feeling very hungry, she went into a farmhouse, and asked for milk. There, in the kitchen, like young jackdaws in a row with their mouths a little open, were the three farm boys, seated on a bench gripped to the alcove of the great fire-way, munching bread and cheese. Above their heads a gun was hung, trigger upwards, and two hams were mellowing in the smoke. At the feet of a black-haired girl, who was slicing onions, lay a sheep dog of tremendous age, with nose stretched out on paws, and in his little blue eyes a gleam of approaching immortality. They all stared at, Barbara. And one of the boys, whose face had the delightful look of him who loses all sense of other things in what he is seeing at the moment, smiled, and continued smiling, with sheer pleasure. Barbara drank her milk, and wandered out again; passing through a gate at the bottom of a steep, rocky tor, she sat down on a sun-warmed stone. The sunlight fell greedily on her here, like an invisible swift hand touching her all over, and specially caressing her throat and face. A very gentle wind, which dived over the tor tops into the young fern; stole down at her, spiced with the fern sap. All was warmth and peace, and only the cuckoos on the far thorn trees\x97as though stationed by the Wistful Master himself\x97were there to disturb her heart: But all the sweetness and piping of the day did not soothe her. In truth, she could not have said what was the matter, except that she felt so discontented, and as it were empty of all but a sort of aching impatience with\x97what exactly she could not say. She had that rather dreadful feeling of something slipping by which she could not catch. It was so new to her to feel like that\x97for no girl was less given to moods and repinings. And all the time a sort of contempt for this soft and almost sentimental feeling made her tighten her lips and frown. She felt distrustful and sarcastic towards a mood so utterly subversive of that fetich \x91Hardness,\x92 to the unconscious worship of which she had been brought up. To stand no sentiment or nonsense either in herself or others was the first article of faith; not to slop-over anywhere. So that to feel as she did was almost horrible to Barbara. Yet she could not get rid of the sensation. With sudden recklessness she tried giving herself up to it entirely. Undoing the scarf at her throat, she let the air play on her bared neck, and stretched out her arms as if to hug the wind to her; then, with a sigh, she got up, and walked on. And now she began thinking of \x91Anonyma\x92; turning her position over and over. The idea that anyone young and beautiful should thus be clipped off in her life, roused her impatient indignation. Let them try it with her! They would soon see! For all her cultivated \x91hardness,\x92 Barbara really hated anything to suffer. It seemed to her unnatural. She never went to that hospital where Lady Valleys had a ward, nor to their summer camp for crippled children, nor to help in their annual concert for sweated workers, without a feeling of such vehement pity that it was like being seized by the throat: Once, when she had been singing to them, the rows of wan, pinched faces below had been too much for her; she had broken down, forgotten her words, lost memory of the tune, and just ended her performance with a smile, worth more perhaps to her audience than those lost verses. She never came away from such sights and places without a feeling of revolt amounting almost to rage; and she only continued to go because she dimly knew that it was expected of her not to turn her back on such things, in her section of Society. But it was not this feeling which made her stop before Mrs. Noel\x92s cottage; nor was it curiosity. It was a quite simple desire to squeeze her hand. \x91Anonyma\x92 seemed taking her trouble as only those women who are no good at self-assertion can take things\x97doing exactly as she would have done if nothing had happened; a little paler than usual, with lips pressed rather tightly together. They neither of them spoke at first, but stood looking, not at each other\x92s faces, but at each other\x92s breasts. At last Barbara stepped forward impulsively and kissed her. After that, like two children who kiss first, and then make acquaintance, they stood apart, silent, faintly smiling. It had been given and returned in real sweetness and comradeship, that kiss, for a sign of womanhood making face against the world; but now that it was over, both felt a little awkward. Would that kiss have been given if Fate had been auspicious? Was it not proof of misery? So Mrs. Noel\x92s smile seemed saying, and Barbara\x92s smile unwillingly admitted. Perceiving that if they talked it could only be about the most ordinary things, they began speaking of music, flowers, and the queerness of bees\x92 legs. But all the time, Barbara, though seemingly unconscious, was noting with her smiling eyes, the tiny movement\x92s, by which one woman can tell what is passing in another. She saw a little quiver tighten the corner of the lips, the eyes suddenly grow large and dark, the thin blouse desperately rise and fall. And her fancy, quickened by last night\x92s memory, saw this woman giving herself up to the memory of love in her thoughts. At this sight she felt a little of that impatience which the conquering feel for the passive, and perhaps just a touch of jealousy. Whatever Miltoun decided, that would this woman accept! Such resignation, while it simplified things, offended the part of Barbara which rebelled against all inaction, all dictation, even from her favourite brother. She said suddenly: \x93Are you going to do nothing? Aren\x92t you going to try and free yourself? If I were in your position, I would never rest till I\x92d made them free me.\x94 But Mrs. Noel did not answer; and sweeping her glance from that crown of soft dark hair, down the soft white figure, to the very feet, Barbara cried: \x93I believe you are a fatalist.\x94 Soon after that, not knowing what more to say, she went away. But walking home across the fields, where full summer was swinging on the delicious air and there was now no bull but only red cows to crop short the \x91milk-maids\x92 and buttercups, she suffered from this strange revelation of the strength of softness and passivity\x97as though she had seen in the white figure of \x91Anonyma,\x92 and heard in her voice something from beyond, symbolic, inconceivable, yet real. CHAPTER XVIII Lord Valleys, relieved from official pressure by subsidence of the war scare, had returned for a long week-end. To say that he had been intensely relieved by the news that Mrs. Noel was not free, would be to put it mildly. Though not old-fashioned, like his mother-in-law, in regard to the mixing of the castes, prepared to admit that exclusiveness was out of date, to pass over with a shrug and a laugh those numerous alliances by which his order were renewing the sinews of war, and indeed in his capacity of an expert, often pointing out the dangers of too much in-breeding\x97yet he had a peculiar personal feeling about his own family, and was perhaps a little extra sensitive because of Agatha; for Shropton, though a good fellow, and extremely wealthy, was only a third baronet, and had originally been made of iron. It was inadvisable to go outside the inner circle where there was no material necessity for so doing. He had not done it himself. Moreover there was a sentiment about these things! On the morning after his arrival, visiting the kennels before breakfast, he stood chatting with his head man, and caressing the wet noses of his two favourite pointers,\x97with something of the feeling of a boy let out of school. Those pleasant creatures, cowering and quivering with pride against his legs, and turning up at him their yellow Chinese eyes, gave him that sense of warmth and comfort which visits men in the presence of their hobbies. With this particular pair, inbred to the uttermost, he had successfully surmounted a great risk. It was now touch and go whether he dared venture on one more cross to the original strain, in the hope of eliminating the last clinging of liver colour. It was a gamble\x97and it was just that which rendered it so vastly interesting. A small voice diverted his attention; he looked round and saw little Ann. She had been in bed when he arrived the night before, and he was therefore the newest thing about. She carried in her arms a guinea-pig, and began at once: \x93Grandpapa, Granny wants you. She\x92s on the terrace; she\x92s talking to Mr. Courtier. I like him\x97he\x92s a kind man. If I put my guinea-pig down, will they bite it? Poor darling\x97they shan\x92t! Isn\x92t it a darling!\x94 Lord Valleys, twirling his moustache, regarded the guinea-pig without favour; he had rather a dislike for all senseless kinds of beasts. Pressing the guinea-pig between her hands, as it might be a concertina, little Ann jigged it gently above the pointers, who, wrinkling horribly their long noses, gazed upwards, fascinated. \x93Poor darlings, they want it\x97don\x92t they? Grandpapa.\x94 \x93Yes.\x94 \x93Do you think the next puppies will be spotted quite all over?\x94 Continuing to twirl his moustache, Lord Valleys answered: \x93I think it is not improbable, Ann.\x94 \x93Why do you like them spotted like that? Oh! they\x92re kissing Sambo\x97I must go!\x94 Lord Valleys followed her, his eyebrows a little raised. As he approached the terrace his wife came, towards him. Her colour was, deeper than usual, and she had the look, higher and more resolute, peculiar to her when she had been opposed. In truth she had just been through a passage of arms with Courtier, who, as the first revealer of Mrs. Noel\x92s situation, had become entitled to a certain confidence on this subject. It had arisen from what she had intended as a perfectly natural and not unkind remark, to the effect that all the trouble had come from Mrs. Noel not having made her position clear to Miltoun from the first. He had at once grown very red. \x93It\x92s easy, Lady Valleys, for those who have never been in the position of a lonely woman, to blame her.\x94 Unaccustomed to be withstood, she had looked at him intently: \x93I am the last person to be hard on a woman for conventional reasons. But I think it showed lack of character.\x94 Courtier\x92s reply had been almost rude. \x93Plants are not equally robust, Lady Valleys. Some, as we know, are actually sensitive.\x94 She had retorted with decision \x93If you like to so dignify the simpler word \x91weak\x92\x94 He had become very rigid at that, biting deeply into his moustache. \x93What crimes are not committed under the sanctity of that creed \x91survival of the fittest,\x92 which suits the book of all you fortunate people so well!\x94 Priding herself on her restraint, Lady Valleys answered: \x93Ah! we must talk that out. On the face of them your words sound a little unphilosophic, don\x92t they?\x94 He had looked straight at her with a queer, unpleasant smile; and she had felt at once disturbed and angry. It was all very well to pet and even to admire these original sort of men, but there were limits. Remembering, however, that he was her guest, she had only said: \x93Perhaps after all we had better not talk it out;\x94 and moving away, she heard him answer: \x93In any case, I\x92m certain Audrey Noel never wilfully kept your son in the dark; she\x92s much too proud.\x94 Though rude, she could not help liking the way he stuck up for this woman; and she threw back at him the words: \x93You and I, Mr. Courtier, must have a good fight some day!\x94 She went towards her husband conscious of the rather pleasurable sensation which combat always roused in her. These two were very good comrades. Theirs had been a love match, and making due allowance for human nature beset by opportunity, had remained, throughout, a solid and efficient alliance. Taking, as they both did, such prominent parts in public and social matters, the time they spent together was limited, but productive of mutual benefit and reinforcement. They had not yet had an opportunity of discussing their son\x92s affair; and, slipping her hand through his arm, Lady Valleys drew him away from the house. \x93I want to talk to you about Miltoun, Geoff.\x94 \x93H\x92m!\x94 said Lord Valleys; \x93yes. The boy\x92s looking worn. Good thing when this election\x92s over.\x94 \x93If he\x92s beaten and hasn\x92t something new and serious to concentrate himself on, he\x92ll fret his heart out over that woman.\x94 Lord Valleys meditated a little before replying. \x93I don\x92t think that, Gertrude. He\x92s got plenty of spirit.\x94 \x93Of course! But it\x92s a real passion. And, you know, he\x92s not like most boys, who\x92ll take what they can.\x94 She said this rather wistfully. \x93I\x92m sorry for the woman,\x94 mused Lord Valleys; \x93I really am.\x94 \x93They say this rumour\x92s done a lot of harm.\x94 \x93Our influence is strong enough to survive that.\x94 \x93It\x92ll be a squeak; I wish I knew what he was going to do. Will you ask him?\x94 \x93You\x92re clearly the person to speak to him,\x94 replied Lord Valleys. \x93I\x92m no hand at that sort of thing.\x94 But Lady Valleys, with genuine discomfort, murmured: \x93My dear, I\x92m so nervous with Eustace. When he puts on that smile of his I\x92m done for, at once.\x94 \x93This is obviously a woman\x92s business; nobody like a mother.\x94 \x93If it were only one of the others,\x94 muttered Lady Valleys: \x93Eustace has that queer way of making you feel lumpy.\x94 Lord Valleys looked at her askance. He had that kind of critical fastidiousness which a word will rouse into activity. Was she lumpy? The idea had never struck him. \x93Well, I\x92ll do it, if I must,\x94 sighed Lady Valleys. When after breakfast she entered Miltoun\x92s \x91den,\x92 he was buckling on his spurs preparatory, to riding out to some of the remoter villages. Under the mask of the Apache chief, Bertie was standing, more inscrutable and neat than ever, in a perfectly tied cravatte, perfectly cut riding breeches, and boots worn and polished till a sooty glow shone through their natural russet. Not specially dandified in his usual dress, Bertie Caradoc would almost sooner have died than disgrace a horse. His eyes, the sharper because they had only half the space of the ordinary eye to glance from, at once took in the fact that his mother wished to be alone with \x91old Miltoun,\x92 and he discreetly left the room. That which disconcerted all who had dealings with Miltoun was the discovery made soon or late, that they could not be sure how anything would strike him. In his mind, as in his face, there was a certain regularity, and then\x97impossible to say exactly where\x97it would, shoot off and twist round a corner. This was the legacy no doubt of the hard-bitten individuality, which had brought to the front so many of his ancestors; for in Miltoun was the blood not only of the Caradocs and Fitz-Harolds, but of most other prominent families in the kingdom, all of whom, in those ages before money made the man, must have had a forbear conspicuous by reason of qualities, not always fine, but always poignant. And now, though Lady Valleys had the audacity of her physique, and was not customarily abashed, she began by speaking of politics, hoping her son would give her an opening. But he gave her none, and she grew nervous. At last, summoning all her coolness, she said: \x93I\x92m dreadfully sorry about this affair, dear boy. Your father told me of your talk with him. Try not to take it too hard.\x94 Miltoun did not answer, and silence being that which Lady Valleys habitually most dreaded, she took refuge in further speech, outlining for her son the whole episode as she saw it from her point of view, and ending with these words: \x93Surely it\x92s not worth it.\x94 Miltoun heard her with his peculiar look, as of a man peering through a vizor. Then smiling, he said: \x93Thank you;\x94 and opened the door. Lady Valleys, without quite knowing whether he intended her to do so, indeed without quite knowing anything at the moment, passed out, and Miltoun closed the door behind her. Ten minutes later he and Bertie were seen riding down the drive. CHAPTER XIX That afternoon the wind, which had been rising steadily, brought a flurry of clouds up from the South-West. Formed out on the heart of the Atlantic, they sailed forward, swift and fleecy at first, like the skirmishing white shallops of a great fleet; then, in serried masses, darkened the sun. About four o\x92clock they broke in rain, which the wind drove horizontally with a cold whiffling murmur. As youth and glamour die in a face before the cold rains of life, so glory died on the moor. The tors, from being uplifted wild castles, became mere grey excrescences. Distance failed. The cuckoos were silent. There was none of the beauty that there is in death, no tragic greatness\x97all was moaning and monotony. But about seven the sun tore its way back through the swathe, and flared out. Like some huge star, whose rays were stretching down to the horizon, and up to the very top of the hill of air, it shone with an amazing murky glamour; the clouds splintered by its shafts, and tinged saffron, piled themselves up as if in wonder. Under the sultry warmth of this new great star, the heather began to steam a little, and the glitter of its wet unopened bells was like that of innumerable tiny smoking fires. The two brothers were drenched as they cantered silently home. Good friends always, they had never much to say to one another. For Miltoun was conscious that he thought on a different plane from Bertie; and Bertie grudged even to his brother any inkling of what was passing in his spirit, just as he grudged parting with diplomatic knowledge, or stable secrets, or indeed anything that might leave him less in command of life. He grudged it, because in a private sort of way it lowered his estimation of his own stoical self-sufficiency; it hurt something proud in the withdrawing-room of his soul. But though he talked little, he had the power of contemplation\x97often found in men of decided character, with a tendency to liver. Once in Nepal, where he had gone to shoot, he had passed a month quite happily with only a Ghoorka servant who could speak no English. To those who asked him if he had not been horribly bored, he had always answered: \x93Not a bit; did a lot of thinking.\x94 With Miltoun\x92s trouble he had the professional sympathy of a brother and the natural intolerance of a confirmed bachelor. Women were to him very kittle-cattle. He distrusted from the bottom of his soul those who had such manifest power to draw things from you. He was one of those men in whom some day a woman might awaken a really fine affection; but who, until that time, would maintain the perfectly male attitude to the entire sex, and, after it, to all the sex but one. Women were, like Life itself, creatures to be watched, carefully used, and kept duly subservient. The only allusion therefore that he made to Miltoun\x92s trouble was very sudden. \x93Old man, I hope you\x92re going to cut your losses.\x94 The words were followed by undisturbed silence: But passing Mrs. Noel\x92s cottage Miltoun said: \x93Take my horse on; I want to go in here.\x94.... She was sitting at her piano with her hands idle, looking at a line of music.... She had been sitting thus for many minutes, but had not yet taken in the notes. When Miltoun\x92s shadow blotted the light by which she was seeing so little, she gave a slight start, and got up. But she neither went towards him, nor spoke. And he, without a word, came in and stood by the hearth, looking down at the empty grate. A tortoise-shell cat which had been watching swallows, disturbed by his entrance, withdrew from the window beneath a chair. This silence, in which the question of their future lives was to be decided, seemed to both interminable; yet, neither could end it. At last, touching his sleeve, she said: \x93You\x92re wet!\x94 Miltoun shivered at that timid sign of possession. And they again stood in silence broken only by the sound of the cat licking its paws. But her faculty for dumbness was stronger than his, and\x97he had to speak first. \x93Forgive me for coming; something must be settled. This\x97rumour\x97\x97\x94 \x93Oh! that!\x94 she said. \x93Is there anything I can do to stop the harm to you?\x94 It was the turn of Miltoun\x92s lips to curl. \x93God! no; let them talk!\x94 Their eyes had come together now, and, once together, seemed unable to part. Mrs. Noel said at last: \x93Will you ever forgive me?\x94 \x93What for\x97it was my fault.\x94 \x93No; I should have known you better.\x94 The depth of meaning in those words\x97the tremendous and subtle admission they contained of all that she had been ready to do, the despairing knowledge in them that he was not, and never had been, ready to \x91bear it out even to the edge of doom\x92\x97made Miltoun wince away. \x93It is not from fear\x97believe that, anyway.\x94 \x93I do.\x94 There followed another long, long silence! But though so close that they were almost touching, they no longer looked at one another. Then Miltoun said: \x93There is only to say good-bye, then.\x94 At those clear words spoken by lips which, though just smiling, failed so utterly to hide his misery, Mrs. Noel\x92s face became colourless as her white gown. But her eyes, which had grown immense, seemed from the sheer lack of all other colour, to have drawn into them the whole of her vitality; to be pouring forth a proud and mournful reproach. Shivering, and crushing himself together with his arms, Miltoun walked towards the window. There was not the faintest sound from her, and he looked back. She was following him with her eyes. He threw his hand up over his face, and went quickly out. Mrs. Noel stood for a little while where he had left her; then, sitting down once more at the piano, began again to con over the line of music. And the cat stole back to the window to watch the swallows. The sunlight was dying slowly on the top branches of the lime-tree; a drizzling rain began to fall. CHAPTER XX Claud Fresnay, Viscount Harbinger was, at the age of thirty-one, perhaps the least encumbered peer in the United Kingdom. Thanks to an ancestor who had acquired land, and departed this life one hundred and thirty years before the town of Nettlefold was built on a small portion of it, and to a father who had died in his son\x92s infancy, after judiciously selling the said town, he possessed a very large income independently of his landed interests. Tall and well-built, with handsome, strongly-marked features, he gave at first sight an impression of strength\x97which faded somewhat when he began to talk. It was not so much the manner of his speech\x97with its rapid slang, and its way of turning everything to a jest\x97as the feeling it produced, that the brain behind it took naturally the path of least resistance. He was in fact one of those personalities who are often enough prominent in politics and social life, by reason of their appearance, position, assurance, and of a certain energy, half genuine, and half mere inherent predilection for short cuts. Certainly he was not idle, had written a book, travelled, was a Captain of Yeomanry, a Justice of the Peace, a good cricketer, and a constant and glib speaker. It would have been unfair to call his enthusiasm for social reform spurious. It was real enough in its way, and did certainly testify that he was not altogether lacking either in imagination or good-heartedness. But it was over and overlaid with the public-school habit\x97that peculiar, extraordinarily English habit, so powerful and beguiling that it becomes a second nature stronger than the first\x97of relating everything in the Universe to the standards and prejudices of a single class. Since practically all his intimate associates were immersed in it, he was naturally not in the least conscious of this habit; indeed there was nothing he deprecated so much in politics as the narrow and prejudiced outlook, such as he had observed in the Nonconformist, or labour politician. He would never have admitted for a moment that certain doors had been banged-to at his birth, bolted when he went to Eton, and padlocked at Cambridge. No one would have denied that there was much that was valuable in his standards\x97a high level of honesty, candour, sportsmanship, personal cleanliness, and self-reliance, together with a dislike of such cruelty as had been officially (so to speak) recognized as cruelty, and a sense of public service to a State run by and for the public schools; but it would have required far more originality than he possessed ever to look at Life from any other point of view than that from which he had been born and bred to watch Her. To fully understand harbinger, one must, and with unprejudiced eyes and brain, have attended one of those great cricket matches in which he had figured conspicuously as a boy, and looking down from some high impartial spot have watched the ground at lunch time covered from rope to rope and stand to stand with a marvellous swarm, all walking in precisely the same manner, with precisely the same expression on their faces, under precisely the same hats\x97a swarm enshrining the greatest identity of, creed and habit ever known since the world began. No, his environment had not been favourable to originality. Moreover he was naturally rapid rather than deep, and life hardly ever left him alone or left him silent. Brought into contact day and night with people to whom politics were more or less a game; run after everywhere; subjected to no form of discipline\x97it was a wonder that he was as serious as he was. Nor had he ever been in love, until, last year, during her first season, Barbara had, as he might have expressed it\x97in the case of another \x91bowled him middle stump. Though so deeply smitten, he had not yet asked her to marry him\x97had not, as it were, had time, nor perhaps quite the courage, or conviction. When he was near her, it seemed impossible that he could go on longer without knowing his fate; when he was away from her it was almost a relief, because there were so many things to be done and said, and so little time to do or say them in. But now, during this fortnight, which, for her sake, he had devoted to Miltoun\x92s cause, his feeling had advanced beyond the point of comfort. He did not admit that the reason of this uneasiness was Courtier, for, after all, Courtier was, in a sense, nobody, and \x91an extremist\x92 into the bargain, and an extremist always affected the centre of Harbinger\x92s anatomy, causing it to give off a peculiar smile and tone of voice. Nevertheless, his eyes, whenever they fell on that sanguine, steady, ironic face, shone with a sort of cold inquiry, or were even darkened by the shade of fear. They met seldom, it is true, for most of his day was spent in motoring and speaking, and most of Courtier\x92s in writing and riding, his leg being still too weak for walking. But once or twice in the smoking room late at night, he had embarked on some bantering discussion with the champion of lost causes; and very soon an ill-concealed impatience had crept into his voice. Why a man should waste his time, flogging dead horses on a journey to the moon, was incomprehensible! Facts were facts, human nature would never be anything but human nature! And it was peculiarly galling to see in Courtier\x92s eye a gleam, to catch in his voice a tone, as if he were thinking: \x93My young friend, your soup is cold!\x94 On a morning after one of these encounters, seeing Barbara sally forth in riding clothes, he asked if he too might go round the stables, and started forth beside her, unwontedly silent, with an odd feeling about his heart, and his throat unaccountably dry. The stables at Monkland Court were as large as many country houses. Accommodating thirty horses, they were at present occupied by twenty-one, including the pony of little Ann. For height, perfection of lighting, gloss, shine, and purity of atmosphere they were unequalled in the county. It seemed indeed impossible that any horse could ever so far forget himself in such a place as to remember that he was a horse. Every morning a little bin of carrots, apples, and lumps of sugar, was set close to the main entrance, ready for those who might desire to feed the dear inhabitants. Reined up to a brass ring on either side of their stalls with their noses towards the doors, they were always on view from nine to ten, and would stand with their necks arched, ears pricked, and coats gleaming, wondering about things, soothed by the faint hissing of the still busy grooms, and ready to move their noses up and down the moment they saw someone enter. In a large loose-box at the end of the north wing Barbara\x92s favourite chestnut hunter, all but one saving sixteenth of whom had been entered in the stud book, having heard her footstep, was standing quite still with his neck turned. He had been crumping up an apple placed amongst his feed, and his senses struggled between the lingering flavour of that delicacy,\x97and the perception of a sound with which he connected carrots. When she unlatched his door, and said \x93Hal,\x94 he at once went towards his manger, to show his independence, but when she said: \x93Oh! very well!\x94 he turned round and came towards her. His eyes, which were full and of a soft brilliance, under thick chestnut lashes, explored her all over. Perceiving that her carrots were not in front, he elongated his neck, let his nose stray round her waist, and gave her gauntletted hand a nip with his lips. Not tasting carrot, he withdrew his nose, and snuffled. Then stepping carefully so as not to tread on her foot, he bunted her gently with his shoulder, till with a quick manoeuvre he got behind her and breathed low and long on her neck. Even this did not smell of carrots, and putting his muzzle over her shoulder against her cheek, he slobbered a very little. A carrot appeared about the level of her waist, and hanging his head over, he tried to reach it. Feeling it all firm and soft under his chin, he snuffled again, and gave her a gentle dig with his knee. But still unable to reach the carrot, he threw his head up, withdrew, and pretended not to see her. And suddenly he felt two long substances round his neck, and something soft against his nose. He suffered this in silence, laying his ears back. The softness began puffing on his muzzle. Pricking his ears again, he puffed back a little harder, with more curiosity, and the softness was withdrawn. He perceived suddenly that he had a carrot in his mouth. Harbinger had witnessed this episode, oddly pale, leaning against the loose-box wall. He spoke, as it came to an end: \x93Lady Babs!\x94 The tone of his voice must have been as strange as it sounded to himself, for Barbara spun round. \x93Yes?\x94 \x93How long am I going on like this?\x94 Neither changing colour nor dropping her eyes, she regarded him with a faintly inquisitive interest. It was not a cruel look, had not a trace of mischief, or sex malice, and yet it frightened him by its serene inscrutability. Impossible to tell what was going on behind it. He took her hand, bent over it, and said in a low voice: \x93You know what I feel; don\x92t be cruel to me!\x94 She did not pull away her hand; it was as if she had not thought of it. \x93I am not a bit cruel.\x94 Looking up, he saw her smiling. \x93Then\x97Babs!\x94 His face was close to hers, but Barbara did not shrink back. She just shook her head; and Harbinger flushed up. \x93Why?\x94 he asked; and as though the enormous injustice of that rejecting gesture had suddenly struck him, he dropped her hand. \x93Why?\x94 he said again, sharply. But the silence was only broken by the cheeping of sparrows outside the round window, and the sound of the horse, Hal, munching the last morsel of his carrot. Harbinger was aware in his every nerve of the sweetish, slightly acrid, husky odour of the loosebox, mingling with the scent of Barbara\x92s hair and clothes. And rather miserably, he said for the third time: \x93Why?\x94 But folding her hands away behind her back she answered gently: \x93My dear, how should I know why?\x94 She was calmly exposed to his embrace if he had only dared; but he did not dare, and went back to the loose-box wall. Biting his finger, he stared at her gloomily. She was stroking the muzzle of her horse; and a sort of dry rage began whisking and rustling in his heart. She had refused him\x97Harbinger! He had not known, had not suspected how much he wanted her. How could there be anybody else for him, while that young, calm, sweet-scented, smiling thing lived, to make his head go round, his senses ache, and to fill his heart with longing! He seemed to himself at that moment the most unhappy of all men. \x93I shall not give you up,\x94 he muttered. Barbara\x92s answer was a smile, faintly curious, compassionate, yet almost grateful, as if she had said: \x93Thank you\x97who knows?\x94 And rather quickly, a yard or so apart, and talking of horses, they returned to the house. It was about noon, when, accompanied by Courtier, she rode forth. The Sou-Westerly spell\x97a matter of three days\x97had given way before radiant stillness; and merely to be alive was to feel emotion. At a little stream running beside the moor under the wild stone man, the riders stopped their horses, just to listen, and, inhale the day. The far sweet chorus of life was tuned to a most delicate rhythm; not one of those small mingled pipings of streams and the lazy air, of beasts, men; birds, and bees, jarred out too harshly through the garment of sound enwrapping the earth. It was noon\x97the still moment\x97but this hymn to the sun, after his too long absence, never for a moment ceased to be murmured. And the earth wore an under-robe of scent, delicious, very finely woven of the young fern sap, heather buds; larch-trees not yet odourless, gorse just going brown, drifted woodsmoke, and the breath of hawthorn. Above Earth\x92s twin vestments of sound and scent, the blue enwrapping scarf of air, that wistful wide champaign, was spanned only by the wings of Freedom. After that long drink of the day, the riders mounted almost in silence to the very top of the moor. There again they sat quite still on their horses, examining the prospect. Far away to South and East lay the sea, plainly visible. Two small groups of wild ponies were slowly grazing towards each other on the hillside below. Courtier said in a low voice: \x93\x91Thus will I sit and sing, with love in my arms; watching our two herds mingle together, and below us the far, divine, cerulean sea.\x92\x94 And, after another silence, looking steadily in Barbara\x92s face, he added: \x93Lady Barbara, I am afraid this is the last time we shall be alone together. While I have the chance, therefore, I must do homage.... You will always be the fixed star for my worship. But your rays are too bright; I shall worship from afar. From your seventh Heaven, therefore, look down on me with kindly eyes, and do not quite forget me:\x94 Under that speech, so strangely compounded of irony and fervour, Barbara sat very still, with glowing cheeks. \x93Yes,\x94 said Courtier, \x93only an immortal must embrace a goddess. Outside the purlieus of Authority I shall sit cross-legged, and prostrate myself three times a day.\x94 But Barbara answered nothing. \x93In the early morning,\x94 went on Courtier, \x93leaving the dark and dismal homes of Freedom I shall look towards the Temples of the Great; there with the eye of faith I shall see you.\x94 He stopped, for Barbara\x92s lips were moving. \x93Don\x92t hurt me, please.\x94 Courtier leaned over, took her hand, and put it to his lips. \x93We will now ride on....\x94 That night at dinner Lord Dennis, seated opposite his great-niece, was struck by her appearance. \x93A very beautiful child,\x94 he thought, \x93a most lovely young creature!\x94 She was placed between Courtier and Harbinger. And the old man\x92s still keen eyes carefully watched those two. Though attentive to their neighbours on the other side, they were both of them keeping the corner of an eye on Barbara and on each other. The thing was transparent to Lord Dennis, and a smile settled in that nest of gravity between his white peaked beard and moustaches. But he waited, the instinct of a fisherman bidding him to neglect no piece of water, till he saw the child silent and in repose, and watched carefully to see what would rise. Although she was so calmly, so healthily eating, her eyes stole round at Courtier. This quick look seemed to Lord Dennis perturbed, as if something were exciting her. Then Harbinger spoke, and she turned to answer him. Her face was calm now, faintly smiling, a little eager, provocative in its joy of life. It made Lord Dennis think of his own youth. What a splendid couple! If Babs married young Harbinger there would not be a finer pair in all England. His eyes travelled back to Courtier. Manly enough! They called him dangerous! There was a look of effervescence, carefully corked down\x97might perhaps be attractive to a girl! To his essentially practical and sober mind, a type like Courtier was puzzling. He liked the look of him, but distrusted his ironic expression, and that appearance of blood to the head. Fellow\x97no doubt\x97that would ride off on his ideas, humanitarian! To Lord Dennis there was something queer about humanitarians. They offended perhaps his dry and precise sense of form. They were always looking out for cruelty or injustice; seemed delighted when they found it\x97swelled up, as it were, when they scented it, and as there was a good deal about, were never quite of normal size. Men who lived for ideas were, in fact, to one for whom facts sufficed always a little worrying! A movement from Barbara brought him back to actuality. Was the possessor of that crown of hair and those divine young shoulders the little Babs who had ridden with him in the Row? Time was certainly the Devil! Her eyes were searching for something; and following the direction of that glance, Lord Dennis found himself observing Miltoun. What a difference between those two! Both no doubt in the great trouble of youth; which sometimes, as he knew too well, lasted on almost to old age. It was a curious look the child was giving her brother, as if asking him to help her. Lord Dennis had seen in his day many young creatures leave the shelter of their freedom and enter the house of the great lottery; many, who had drawn a prize and thereat lost forever the coldness of life; many too, the light of whose eyes had faded behind the shutters of that house, having drawn a blank. The thought of \x91little\x92 Babs on the threshold of that inexorable saloon, filled him with an eager sadness; and the sight of the two men watching for her, waiting for her, like hunters, was to him distasteful. In any case, let her not, for Heaven\x92s sake, go ranging as far as that red fellow of middle age, who might have ideas, but had no pedigree; let her stick to youth and her own order, and marry the\x97young man, confound him, who looked like a Greek god, of the wrong period, having grown a moustache. He remembered her words the other evening about these two and the different lives they lived. Some romantic notion or other was working in her! And again he looked at Courtier. A Quixotic type\x97the sort that rode slap-bang at everything! All very well\x97but not for Babs! She was not like the glorious Garibaldi\x92s glorious Anita! It was truly characteristic of Lord Dennis\x97and indeed of other people\x97that to him champions of Liberty when dead were far dearer than champions of Liberty when living. Yes, Babs would want more, or was it less, than just a life of sleeping under the stars for the man she loved, and the cause he fought for. She would want pleasure, and, not too much effort, and presently a little power; not the uncomfortable after-fame of a woman who went through fire, but the fame and power of beauty, and Society prestige. This, fancy of hers, if it were a fancy, could be nothing but the romanticism of a young girl. For the sake of a passing shadow, to give up substance? It wouldn\x92t do! And again Lord Dennis fixed his shrewd glance on his great-niece. Those eyes, that smile! Yes! She would grow out of this. And take the Greek god, the dying Gaul\x97whichever that young man was! CHAPTER XXI It was not till the morning of polling day itself that Courtier left Monkland Court. He had already suffered for some time from bad conscience. For his knee was practically cured, and he knew well that it was Barbara, and Barbara alone, who kept him staying there. The atmosphere of that big house with its army of servants, the impossibility of doing anything for himself, and the feeling of hopeless insulation from the vivid and necessitous sides of life, galled him greatly. He felt a very genuine pity for these people who seemed to lead an existence as it were smothered under their own social importance. It was not their fault. He recognized that they did their best. They were good specimens of their kind; neither soft nor luxurious, as things went in a degenerate and extravagant age; they evidently tried to be simple\x97and this seemed to him to heighten the pathos of their situation. Fate had been too much for them. What human spirit could emerge untrammelled and unshrunken from that great encompassing host of material advantage? To a Bedouin like Courtier, it was as though a subtle, but very terrible tragedy was all the time being played before his eyes; and in, the very centre of this tragedy was the girl who so greatly attracted him. Every night when he retired to that lofty room, which smelt so good, and where, without ostentation, everything was so perfectly ordered for his comfort, he thought: \x93My God, to-morrow I\x92ll be off!\x94 But every morning when he met her at breakfast his thought was precisely the same, and there were moments when he caught himself wondering: \x93Am I falling under the spell of this existence\x97am I getting soft?\x94 He recognized as never before that the peculiar artificial \x91hardness\x92 of the patrician was a brine or pickle, in which, with the instinct of self-preservation they deliberately soaked themselves, to prevent the decay of their overprotected fibre. He perceived it even in Barbara\x97a sort of sentiment-proof overall, a species of mistrust of the emotional or lyrical, a kind of contempt of sympathy and feeling. And every day he was more and more tempted to lay rude hands on this garment; to see whether he could not make her catch fire, and flare up with some emotion or idea. In spite of her tantalizing, youthful self-possession, he saw that she felt this longing in him, and now and then he caught a glimpse of a streak of recklessness in her which lured him on: And yet, when at last he was saying good-bye on the night before polling day, he could not flatter himself that he had really struck any spark from her. Certainly she gave him no chance, at that final interview, but stood amongst the other women, calm and smiling, as if determined that he should not again mock her with his ironical devotion. He got up very early the next morning, intending to pass away unseen. In the car put at his disposal; he found a small figure in a holland-frock, leaning back against the cushions so that some sandalled toes pointed up at the chauffeur\x92s back. They belonged to little Ann, who in the course of business had discovered the vehicle before the door. Her sudden little voice under her sudden little nose, friendly but not too friendly, was comforting to Courtier. \x93Are you going? I can come as, far as the gate.\x94 \x93That is lucky.\x94 \x93Yes. Is that all your luggage?\x94 \x93I\x92m afraid it is.\x94 \x93Oh! It\x92s quite a lot, really, isn\x92t it?\x94 \x93As much as I deserve.\x94 \x93Of course you don\x92t have to take guinea-pigs about with you?\x94 \x93Not as a rule.\x94 \x93I always do. There\x92s great-Granny!\x94 There certainly was Lady Casterley, standing a little back from the drive, and directing a tall gardener how to deal with an old oak-tree. Courtier alighted, and went towards her to say good-bye. She greeted him with a certain grim cordiality. \x93So you are going! I am glad of that, though you quite understand that I like you personally.\x94 \x93Quite!\x94 Her eyes gleamed maliciously. \x93Men who laugh like you are dangerous, as I\x92ve told you before!\x94 Then, with great gravity; she added \x93My granddaughter will marry Lord Harbinger. I mention that, Mr. Courtier, for your peace of mind. You are a man of honour; it will go no further.\x94 Courtier, bowing over her hand, answered: \x93He will be lucky.\x94 The little old lady regarded him unflinchingly. \x93He will, sir. Good-bye!\x94 Courtier smilingly raised his hat. His cheeks were burning. Regaining the car, he looked round. Lady Casterley was busy once more exhorting the tall gardener. The voice of little Ann broke in on his thoughts: \x93I hope you\x92ll come again. Because I expect I shall be here at Christmas; and my brothers will be here then, that is, Jock and Tiddy, not Christopher because he\x92s young. I must go now. Good-bye! Hallo, Susie!\x94 Courtier saw her slide away, and join the little pale adoring figure of the lodge-keeper\x92s daughter. The car passed out into the lane. If Lady Casterley had planned this disclosure, which indeed she had not, for the impulse had only come over her at the sound of Courtier\x92s laugh, she could not have, devised one more effectual, for there was deep down in him all a wanderer\x92s very real distrust, amounting almost to contempt, of people so settled and done for; as aristocrats or bourgeois, and all a man of action\x92s horror of what he called puking and muling. The pursuit of Barbara with any other object but that of marriage had naturally not occurred to one who had little sense of conventional morality, but much self-respect; and a secret endeavour to cut out Harbinger, ending in a marriage whereat he would figure as a sort of pirate, was quite as little to the taste of a man not unaccustomed to think himself as good as other people. He caused the car to deviate up the lane that led to Audrey Noel\x92s, hating to go away without a hail of cheer to that ship in distress. She came out to him on the verandah. From the clasp of her hand, thin and faintly browned\x97the hand of a woman never quite idle\x97he felt that she relied on him to understand and sympathize; and nothing so awakened the best in Courtier as such mute appeals to his protection. He said gently: \x93Don\x92t let them think you\x92re down;\x94 and, squeezing her hand hard: \x93Why should you be wasted like this? It\x92s a sin and shame!\x94 But he stopped in what he felt to be an unlucky speech at sight of her face, which without movement expressed so much more than his words. He was protesting as a civilized man; her face was the protest of Nature, the soundless declaration of beauty wasted against its will, beauty that was life\x92s invitation to the embrace which gave life birth. \x93I\x92m clearing out, myself,\x94 he said: \x93You and I, you know, are not good for these people. No birds of freedom allowed!\x94 Pressing his hand, she turned away into the house, leaving Courtier gazing at the patch of air where her white figure had stood. He had always had a special protective feeling for Audrey Noel, a feeling which with but little encouragement might have become something warmer. But since she had been placed in her anomalous position, he would not for the world have brushed the dew off her belief that she could trust him. And, now that he had fixed his own gaze elsewhere, and she was in this bitter trouble, he felt on her account the rancour that a brother feels when Justice and Pity have conspired to flout his sister. The voice of Frith the chauffeur roused him from gloomy reverie. \x93Lady Barbara, sir!\x94 Following the man\x92s eyes, Courtier saw against the sky-line on the for above Ashman\x92s Folly, an equestrian statue. He stopped the car at once, and got out. He reached her at the ruin, screened from the road, by that divine chance which attends on men who take care that it shall. He could not tell whether she knew of his approach, and he would have given all he had, which was not much, to have seen through the stiff grey of her coat, and the soft cream of her body, into that mysterious cave, her heart. To have been for a moment, like Ashman, done for good and all with material things, and living the white life where are no barriers between man and woman. The smile on her lips so baffled him, puffed there by her spirit, as a first flower is puffed through the sur face of earth to mock at the spring winds. How tell what it signified! Yet he rather prided himself on his knowledge of women, of whom he had seen something. But all he found to say was: \x93I\x92m glad of this chance.\x94 Then suddenly looking up, he found her strangely pale and quivering. \x93I shall see you in London!\x94 she said; and, touching her horse with her whip, without looking back, she rode away over the hill. Courtier returned to the moor road, and getting into the car, muttered: \x93Faster, please, Frith!\x94.... CHAPTER XXII Polling was already in brisk progress when Courtier arrived in Bucklandbury; and partly from a not unnatural interest in the result, partly from a half-unconscious clinging to the chance of catching another glimpse of Barbara, he took his bag to the hotel, determined to stay for the announcement of the poll. Strolling out into the High Street he began observing the humours of the day. The bloom of political belief had long been brushed off the wings of one who had so flown the world\x92s winds. He had seen too much of more vivid colours to be capable now of venerating greatly the dull and dubious tints of blue and yellow. They left him feeling extremely philosophic. Yet it was impossible to get away from them, for the very world that day seemed blue and yellow, nor did the third colour of red adopted by both sides afford any clear assurance that either could see virtue in the other; rather, it seemed to symbolize the desire of each to have his enemy\x92s blood. But Courtier soon observed by the looks cast at his own detached, and perhaps sarcastic, face, that even more hateful to either side than its antagonist, was the philosophic eye. Unanimous was the longing to heave half a brick at it whenever it showed itself. With its d\x97-d impartiality, its habit of looking through the integument of things to see if there might be anything inside, he felt that they regarded it as the real adversary\x97the eternal foe to all the little fat \x91facts,\x92 who, dressed up in blue and yellow, were swaggering and staggering, calling each other names, wiping each other\x92s eyes, blooding each other\x92s noses. To these little solemn delicious creatures, all front and no behind, the philosophic eye, with its habit of looking round the corner, was clearly detestable. The very yellow and very blue bodies of these roistering small warriors with their hands on their tin swords and their lips on their tin trumpets, started up in every window and on every wall confronting each citizen in turn, persuading him that they and they alone were taking him to Westminster. Nor had they apparently for the most part much trouble with electors, who, finding uncertainty distasteful, passionately desired to be assured that the country could at once be saved by little yellow facts or little blue facts, as the case might be; who had, no doubt, a dozen other good reasons for being on the one side or the other; as, for instance, that their father had been so before them; that their bread was buttered yellow or buttered blue; that they had been on the other side last time; that they had thought it over and made up their minds; that they had innocent blue or naive yellow beer within; that his lordship was the man; or that the words proper to their mouths were \x91Chilcox for Bucklandbury\x92; and, above all, the one really creditable reason, that, so far as they could tell with the best of their intellect and feelings, the truth at the moment was either blue or yellow. The narrow high street was thronged with voters. Tall policemen stationed there had nothing to do. The certainty of all, that they were going to win, seemed to keep everyone in good humour. There was as yet no need to break anyone\x92s head, for though the sharpest lookout was kept for any signs of the philosophic eye, it was only to be found\x97outside Courtier\x97in the perambulators of babies, in one old man who rode a bicycle waveringly along the street and stopped to ask a policeman what was the matter in the town, and in two rather green-faced fellows who trundled barrows full of favours both blue and yellow. But though Courtier eyed the \x91facts\x92 with such suspicion, the keenness of everyone about the business struck him as really splendid. They went at it with a will. Having looked forward to it for months, they were going to look back on it for months. It was evidently a religious ceremony, summing up most high feelings; and this seemed to one who was himself a man of action, natural, perhaps pathetic, but certainly no matter for scorn. It was already late in the afternoon when there came debouching into the high street a long string of sandwichmen, each bearing before and behind him a poster containing these words beautifully situated in large dark blue letters against a pale blue ground: \x93NEW COMPLICATIONS. DANGER NOT PAST. VOTE FOR MILTOUN AND THE GOVERNMENT, AND SAVE THE EMPIRE.\x94 Courtier stopped to look at them with peculiar indignation. Not only did this poster tramp in again on his cherished convictions about Peace, but he saw in it something more than met the unphilosophic eye. It symbolized for him all that was catch-penny in the national life-an epitaph on the grave of generosity, unutterably sad. Yet from a Party point of view what could be more justifiable? Was it not desperately important that every blue nerve should be strained that day to turn yellow nerves, if not blue, at all events green, before night fell? Was it not perfectly true that the Empire could only be saved by voting blue? Could they help a blue paper printing the words, \x91New complications,\x92 which he had read that morning? No more than the yellows could help a yellow journal printing the words \x91Lord Miltoun\x92s Evening Adventure.\x92 Their only business was to win, ever fighting fair. The yellows had not fought fair, they never did, and one of their most unfair tactics was the way they had of always accusing the blues of unfair fighting, an accusation truly ludicrous! As for truth! That which helped the world to be blue, was obviously true; that which didn\x92t, as obviously not. There was no middle policy! The man who saw things neither was a softy, and no proper citizen. And as for giving the yellows credit for sincerity\x97the yellows never gave them credit! But though Courtier knew all that, this poster seemed to him particularly damnable, and he could not for the life of him resist striking one of the sandwich-boards with his cane. The resounding thwack startled a butcher\x92s pony standing by the pavement. It reared, and bolted forward, with Courtier, who had naturally seized the rein, hanging on. A dog dashed past. Courtier tripped and fell. The pony, passing over, struck him on the head with a hoof. For a moment he lost consciousness; then coming to himself, refused assistance, and went to his hotel. He felt very giddy, and, after bandaging a nasty cut, lay down on his bed. Miltoun, returning from that necessary exhibition of himself, the crowning fact, at every polling centre, found time to go and see him. \x93That last poster of yours!\x94 Courtier began, at once. \x93I\x92m having it withdrawn.\x94 \x93It\x92s done the trick\x97congratulations\x97you\x92ll get in!\x94 \x93I knew nothing of it.\x94 \x93My dear fellow, I didn\x92t suppose you did.\x94 \x93When there is a desert, Courtier, between a man and the sacred city, he doesn\x92t renounce his journey because he has to wash in dirty water on the way: The mob\x97how I loathe it!\x94 There was such pent-up fury in those words as to astonish even one whose life had been passed in conflict with majorities. \x93I hate its mean stupidities, I hate the sound of its voice, and the look on its face\x97it\x92s so ugly, it\x92s so little. Courtier, I suffer purgatory from the thought that I shall scrape in by the votes of the mob. There is sin in using this creature and I am expiating it.\x94 To this strange outburst, Courtier at first made no reply. \x93You\x92ve been working too hard,\x94 he said at last, \x93you\x92re off your balance. After all, the mob\x92s made up of men like you and me.\x94 \x93No, Courtier, the mob is not made up of men like you and me. If it were it would not be the mob.\x94 \x93It looks,\x94 Courtier answered gravely, \x93as if you had no business in this galley. I\x92ve always steered clear of it myself.\x94 \x93You follow your feelings. I have not that happiness.\x94 So saying, Miltoun turned to the door. Courtier\x92s voice pursued him earnestly. \x93Drop your politics\x97if you feel like this about them; don\x92t waste your life following whatever it is you follow; don\x92t waste hers!\x94 But Miltoun did not answer. It was a wondrous still night, when, a few minutes before twelve, with his forehead bandaged under his hat, the champion of lost causes left the hotel and made his way towards the Grammar School for the declaration of the poll. A sound as of some monster breathing guided him, till, from a steep empty street he came in sight of a surging crowd, spread over the town square, like a dark carpet patterned by splashes of lamplight. High up above that crowd, on the little peaked tower of the Grammar School, a brightly lighted clock face presided; and over the passionate hopes in those thousands of hearts knit together by suspense the sky had lifted; and showed no cloud between them and the purple fields of air. To Courtier descending towards the square, the swaying white faces, turned all one way, seemed like the heads of giant wild flowers in a dark field, shivered by wind. The night had charmed away the blue and yellow facts, and breathed down into that throng the spirit of emotion. And he realized all at once the beauty and meaning of this scene\x97expression of the quivering forces, whose perpetual flux, controlled by the Spirit of Balance, was the soul of the world. Thousands of hearts with the thought of self lost in one over-mastering excitement! An old man with a long grey beard, standing close to his elbow, murmured: \x93\x91Tis anxious work\x97I wouldn\x92t ha\x92 missed this for anything in the world.\x94 \x93Fine, eh?\x94 answered Courtier. \x93Aye,\x94 said the old man, \x93\x91tis fine. I\x92ve not seen the like o\x92 this since the great year\x97forty-eight. There they are\x97the aristocrats!\x94 Following the direction of that skinny hand Courtier saw on a balcony Lord and Lady Valleys, side by side, looking steadily down at the crowd. There too, leaning against a window and talking to someone behind, was Barbara. The old man went on muttering, and Courtier could see that his eyes had grown very bright, his whole face transfigured by intense hostility; he felt drawn to this old creature, thus moved to the very soul. Then he saw Barbara looking down at him, with her hand raised to her temple to show that she saw his bandaged head. He had the presence of mind not to lift his hat. The old man spoke again. \x93You wouldn\x92t remember forty-eight, I suppose. There was a feeling in the people then\x97we would ha\x92 died for things in those days. I\x92m eighty-four,\x94 and he held his shaking hand up to his breast, \x93but the spirit\x92s alive here yet! God send the Radical gets in!\x94 There was wafted from him a scent as of potatoes. Far behind, at the very edge of the vast dark throng, some voices began singing: \x93Way down upon the Swanee ribber.\x94 The tune floated forth, ceased, spurted up once more, and died. Then, in the very centre of the square a stentorian baritone roared forth: \x93Should auld acquaintance be forgot!\x94 The song swelled, till every kind of voice, from treble to the old Chartist\x92s quavering bass, was chanting it; here and there the crowd heaved with the movement of linked arms. Courtier found the soft fingers of a young woman in his right hand, the old Chartist\x92s dry trembling paw in his left. He himself sang loudly. The grave and fearful music sprang straight up into they air, rolled out right and left, and was lost among the hills. But it had no sooner died away than the same huge baritone yelled \x93God save our gracious King!\x94 The stature of the crowd seemed at once to leap up two feet, and from under that platform of raised hats rose a stupendous shouting. \x93This,\x94 thought Courtier, \x93is religion!\x94 They were singing even on the balconies; by the lamplight he could see Lord Valleys mouth not opened quite enough, as though his voice were just a little ashamed of coming out, and Barbara with her head flung back against the pillar, pouring out her heart. No mouth in all the crowd was silent. It was as though the soul of the English people were escaping from its dungeon of reserve, on the pinions of that chant. But suddenly, like a shot bird closing wings, the song fell silent and dived headlong back to earth. Out from under the clock-face had moved a thin dark figure. More figures came behind. Courtier could see Miltoun. A voice far away cried: \x93Up; Chilcox!\x94 A huge: \x93Husill\x94 followed; then such a silence, that the sound of an engine shunting a mile away could be heard plainly. The dark figure moved forward, and a tiny square of paper gleamed out white against the black of his frock-coat. \x93Ladies and gentlemen. Result of the Poll: \x93Miltoun Four thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight. Chilcox Four thousand eight hundred and two.\x94 The silence seemed to fall to earth, and break into a thousand pieces. Through the pandemonium of cheers and groaning, Courtier with all his strength forced himself towards the balcony. He could see Lord Valleys leaning forward with a broad smile; Lady Valleys passing her hand across her eyes; Barbara with her hand in Harbinger\x92s, looking straight into his face. He stopped. The old Chartist was still beside him, tears rolling down his cheeks into his beard. Courtier saw Miltoun come forward, and stand, unsmiling, deathly pale. PART II CHAPTER I At three o\x92clock in the afternoon of the nineteenth of July little Ann Shropton commenced the ascent of the main staircase of Valleys House, London. She climbed slowly, in the very middle, an extremely small white figure on those wide and shining stairs, counting them aloud. Their number was never alike two days running, which made them attractive to one for whom novelty was the salt of life. Coming to that spot where they branched, she paused to consider which of the two flights she had used last, and unable to remember, sat down. She was the bearer of a message. It had been new when she started, but was already comparatively old, and likely to become older, in view of a design now conceived by her of travelling the whole length of the picture gallery. And while she sat maturing this plan, sunlight flooding through a large window drove a white refulgence down into the heart of the wide polished space of wood and marble, whence she had come. The nature of little Ann habitually rejected fairies and all fantastic things, finding them quite too much in the air, and devoid of sufficient reality and \x91go\x92; and this refulgence, almost unearthly in its travelling glory, passed over her small head and played strangely with the pillars in the hall, without exciting in her any fancies or any sentiment. The intention of discovering what was at the end of the picture gallery absorbed the whole of her essentially practical and active mind. Deciding on the left-hand flight of stairs, she entered that immensely long, narrow, and\x97with blinds drawn\x97rather dark saloon. She walked carefully, because the floor was very slippery here, and with a kind of seriousness due partly to the darkness and partly to the pictures. They were indeed, in this light, rather formidable, those old Caradocs black, armoured creatures, some of them, who seemed to eye with a sort of burning, grim, defensive greed the small white figure of their descendant passing along between them. But little Ann, who knew they were only pictures, maintained her course steadily, and every now and then, as she passed one who seemed to her rather uglier than the others, wrinkled her sudden little nose. At the end, as she had thought; appeared a door. She opened it, and passed on to a landing. There was a stone staircase in the corner, and there were two doors. It would be nice to go up the staircase, but it would also be nice to open the doors. Going towards the first door, with a little thrill, she turned the handle. It was one of those rooms, necessary in houses, for which she had no great liking; and closing this door rather loudly she opened the other one, finding herself in a chamber not resembling the rooms downstairs, which were all high and nicely gilded, but more like where she had lessons, low, and filled with books and leather chairs. From the end of the room which she could not see, she heard a sound as of someone kissing something, and instinct had almost made her turn to go away when the word: \x93Hallo!\x94 suddenly opened her lips. And almost directly she saw that Granny and Grandpapa were standing by the fireplace. Not knowing quite whether they were glad to see her, she went forward and began at once: \x93Is this where you sit, Grandpapa?\x94 \x93It is.\x94 \x93It\x92s nice, isn\x92t it, Granny? Where does the stone staircase go to?\x94 \x93To the roof of the tower, Ann.\x94 \x93Oh! I have to give a message, so I must go now.\x94 \x93Sorry to lose you.\x94 \x93Yes; good-bye!\x94 Hearing the door shut behind her, Lord and Lady Valleys looked at each other with a dubious smile. The little interview which she had interrupted, had arisen in this way. Accustomed to retire to this quiet and homely room, which was not his official study where he was always liable to the attacks of secretaries, Lord Valleys had come up here after lunch to smoke and chew the cud of a worry. The matter was one in connection with his Pendridny estate, in Cornwall. It had long agitated both his agent and himself, and had now come to him for final decision. The question affected two villages to the north of the property, whose inhabitants were solely dependent on the working of a large quarry, which had for some time been losing money. A kindly man, he was extremely averse to any measure which would plunge his tenants into distress, and especially in cases where there had been no question of opposition between himself and them. But, reduced to its essentials, the matter stood thus: Apart from that particular quarry the Pendridny estate was not only a going, but even a profitable concern, supporting itself and supplying some of the sinews of war towards Valleys House and the racing establishment at Newmarket and other general expenses; with this quarry still running, allowing for the upkeep of Pendridny, and the provision of pensions to superannuated servants, it was rather the other way. Sitting there, that afternoon, smoking his favourite pipe, he had at last come to the conclusion that there was nothing for it but to close down. He had not made this resolution lightly; though, to do him justice, the knowledge that the decision would be bound to cause an outcry in the local, and perhaps the National Press, had secretly rather spurred him on to the resolve than deterred him from it. He felt as if he were being dictated to in advance, and he did not like dictation. To have to deprive these poor people of their immediate living was, he knew, a good deal more irksome to him than to those who would certainly make a fuss about it, his conscience was clear, and he could discount that future outcry as mere Party spite. He had very honestly tried to examine the thing all round; and had reasoned thus: If I keep this quarry open, I am really admitting the principle of pauperization, since I naturally look to each of my estates to support its own house, grounds, shooting, and to contribute towards the support of this house, and my family, and racing stable, and all the people employed about them both. To allow any business to be run on my estates which does not contribute to the general upkeep, is to protect and really pauperize a portion of my tenants at the expense of the rest; it must therefore be false economics and a secret sort of socialism. Further, if logically followed out, it might end in my ruin, and to allow that, though I might not personally object, would be to imply that I do not believe that I am by virtue of my traditions and training, the best machinery through which the State can work to secure the welfare of the people.... When he had reached that point in his consideration of the question, his mind, or rather perhaps, his essential self, had not unnaturally risen up and said: Which is absurd! Impersonality was in fashion, and as a rule he believed in thinking impersonally. There was a point, however, where the possibility of doing so ceased, without treachery to oneself, one\x92s order, and the country. And to the argument which he was quite shrewd enough to put to himself, sooner than have it put by anyone else, that it was disproportionate for a single man by a stroke of the pen to be able to dispose of the livelihood of hundreds whose senses and feelings were similar to his own\x97he had answered: \x93If I didn\x92t, some plutocrat or company would\x97or, worse still, the State!\x94 Cooperative enterprise being, in his opinion, foreign to the spirit of the country, there was, so far as he could see, no other alternative. Facts were facts and not to be got over! Notwithstanding all this, the necessity for the decision made him sorry, for if he had no great sense of proportion, he was at least humane. He was still smoking his pipe and staring at a sheet of paper covered with small figures when his wife entered. Though she had come to ask his advice on a very different subject, she saw at once that he was vexed, and said: \x93What\x92s the matter, Geoff?\x94 Lord Valleys rose, went to the hearth, deliberately tapped out his pipe, then held out to her the sheet of paper. \x93That quarry! Nothing for it\x97must go!\x94 Lady Valleys\x92 face changed. \x93Oh, no! It will mean such dreadful distress.\x94 Lord Valleys stared at his nails. \x93It\x92s putting a drag on the whole estate,\x94 he said. \x93I know, but how could we face the people\x97I should never be able to go down there. And most of them have such enormous families.\x94 Since Lord Valleys continued to bend on his nails that slow, thought-forming stare, she went on earnestly: \x93Rather than that I\x92d make sacrifices. I\x92d sooner Pendridny were let than throw all those people out of work. I suppose it would let.\x94 \x93Let? Best woodcock shooting in the world.\x94 Lady Valleys, pursuing her thoughts, went on: \x93In time we might get the people drafted into other things. Have you consulted Miltoun?\x94 \x93No,\x94 said Lord Valleys shortly, \x93and don\x92t mean to\x97he\x92s too unpractical.\x94 \x93He always seems to know what he wants very well.\x94 \x93I tell you,\x94 repeated Lord Valleys, \x93Miltoun\x92s no good in a matter of this sort\x97he and his ideas throw back to the Middle Ages.\x94 Lady Valleys went closer, and took him by the lapels of his collar. \x93Geoff-really, to please me; some other way!\x94 Lord Valleys frowned, staring at her for some time; and at last answered: \x93To please you\x97I\x92ll leave it over another year.\x94 \x93You think that\x92s better than letting?\x94 \x93I don\x92t like the thought of some outsider there. Time enough to come to that if we must. Take it as my Christmas present.\x94 Lady Valleys, rather flushed, bent forward and kissed his ear. It was at this moment that little Ann had entered. When she was gone, and they had exchanged that dubious look, Lady Valleys said: \x93I came about Babs. I don\x92t know what to make of her since we came up. She\x92s not putting her heart into things.\x94 Lord Valleys answered almost sulkily: \x93It\x92s the heat probably\x97or Claud Harbinger.\x94 In spite of his easy-going parentalism, he disliked the thought of losing the child whom he so affectionately admired. \x93Ah!\x94 said Lady Valleys slowly, \x93I\x92m not so sure.\x94 \x93How do you mean?\x94 \x93There\x92s something queer about her. I\x92m by no means certain she hasn\x92t got some sort of feeling for that Mr. Courtier.\x94 \x93What!\x94 said Lord Valleys, growing most unphilosophically red. \x93Exactly!\x94 \x93Confound it, Gertrude, Miltoun\x92s business was quite enough for one year.\x94 \x93For twenty,\x94 murmured Lady Valleys. \x93I\x92m watching her. He\x92s going to Persia, they say.\x94 \x93And leaving his bones there, I hope,\x94 muttered Lord Valleys. \x93Really, it\x92s too much. I should think you\x92re all wrong, though.\x94 Lady Valleys raised her eyebrows. Men were very queer about such things! Very queer and worse than helpless! \x93Well,\x94 she said, \x93I must go to my meeting. I\x92ll take her, and see if I can get at something,\x94 and she went away. It was the inaugural meeting of the Society for the Promotion of the Birth Rate, over which she had promised to preside. The scheme was one in which she had been prominent from the start, appealing as it did to her large and full-blooded nature. Many movements, to which she found it impossible to refuse her name, had in themselves but small attraction; and it was a real comfort to feel something approaching enthusiasm for one branch of her public work. Not that there was any academic consistency about her in the matter, for in private life amongst her friends she was not narrowly dogmatic on the duty of wives to multiply exceedingly. She thought imperially on the subject, without bigotry. Large, healthy families, in all cases save individual ones! The prime idea at the back of her mind was\x97National Expansion! Her motto, and she intended if possible to make it the motto of the League, was: \x91De l\x92audace, et encore de l\x92audace!\x92 It was a question of the full realization of the nation. She had a true, and in a sense touching belief in \x91the flag,\x92 apart from what it might cover. It was her idealism. \x93You may talk,\x94 she would say, \x93as much as you like about directing national life in accordance with social justice! What does the nation care about social justice? The thing is much bigger than that. It\x92s a matter of sentiment. We must expand!\x94 On the way to the meeting, occupied with her speech, she made no attempt to draw Barbara into conversation. That must wait. The child, though languid, and pale, was looking so beautiful that it was a pleasure to have her support in such a movement. In a little dark room behind the hall the Committee were already assembled, and they went at once on to the platform. CHAPTER II Unmoved by the stares of the audience, Barbara sat absorbed in moody thoughts. Into the three weeks since Miltoun\x92s election there had been crowded such a multitude of functions that she had found, as it were, no time, no energy to know where she stood with herself. Since that morning in the stable, when he had watched her with the horse Hal, Harbinger had seemed to live only to be close to her. And the consciousness of his passion gave her a tingling sense of pleasure. She had been riding and dancing with him, and sometimes this had been almost blissful. But there were times too, when she felt\x97though always with a certain contempt of herself, as when she sat on that sunwarmed stone below the tor\x97a queer dissatisfaction, a longing for something outside a world where she had to invent her own starvations and simplicities, to make-believe in earnestness. She had seen Courtier three times. Once he had come to dine, in response to an invitation from Lady Valleys worded in that charming, almost wistful style, which she had taught herself to use to those below her in social rank, especially if they were intelligent; once to the Valleys House garden party; and next day, having told him what time she would be riding, she had found him in the Row, not mounted, but standing by the rail just where she must pass, with that look on his face of mingled deference and ironic self-containment, of which he was a master. It appeared that he was leaving England; and to her questions why, and where, he had only shrugged his shoulders. Up on this dusty platform, in the hot bare hall, facing all those people, listening to speeches whose sense she was too languid and preoccupied to take in, the whole medley of thoughts, and faces round her, and the sound of the speakers\x92 voices, formed a kind of nightmare, out of which she noted with extreme exactitude the colour of her mother\x92s neck beneath a large black hat, and the expression on the face of a Committee man to the right, who was biting his fingers under cover of a blue paper. She realized that someone was speaking amongst the audience, casting forth, as it were, small bunches of words. She could see him\x97a little man in a black coat, with a white face which kept jerking up and down. \x93I feel that this is terrible,\x94 she heard him say; \x93I feel that this is blasphemy. That we should try to tamper with the greatest force, the greatest and the most sacred and secret-force, that\x97that moves in the world, is to me horrible. I cannot bear to listen; it seems to make everything so small!\x94 She saw him sit down, and her mother rising to answer. \x93We must all sympathize with the sincerity and to a certain extent with the intention of our friend in the body of the hall. But we must ask ourselves: \x93Have we the right to allow ourselves the luxury, of private feelings in a matter which concerns the national expansion. We must not give way to sentiment. Our friend in the body of the hall spoke\x97he will forgive me for saying so\x97like a poet, rather than a serious reformer. I am afraid that if we let ourselves drop into poetry, the birth rate of this country will very soon drop into poetry too. And that I think it is impossible for us to contemplate with folded hands. The resolution I was about to propose when our friend in the body of the hall\x97\x97\x94 But Barbara\x92s attention, had wandered off again into that queer medley of thoughts, and feelings, out of which the little man had so abruptly roused her. Then she realized that the meeting was breaking up, and her mother saying: \x93Now, my dear, it\x92s hospital day. We\x92ve just time.\x94 When they were once more in the car, she leaned back very silent, watching the traffic. Lady Valleys eyed her sidelong. \x93What a little bombshell,\x94 she said, \x93from that small person! He must have got in by mistake. I hear Mr. Courtier has a card for Helen Gloucester\x92s ball to-night, Babs.\x94 \x93Poor man!\x94 \x93You will be there,\x94 said Lady Valleys dryly. Barbara drew back into her corner. \x93Don\x92t tease me, Mother!\x94 An expression of compunction crossed Lady Valleys\x92 face; she tried to possess herself of Barbara\x92s hand. But that languid hand did not return her squeeze. \x93I know the mood you\x92re in, dear. It wants all one\x92s pluck to shake it off; don\x92t let it grow on you. You\x92d better go down to Uncle Dennis to-morrow. You\x92ve been overdoing it.\x94 Barbara sighed. \x93I wish it were to-morrow.\x94 The car had stopped, and Lady Valleys said: \x93Will you come in, or are you too tired? It always does them good to see you.\x94 \x93You\x92re twice as tired as me,\x94 Barbara answered; \x93of course I\x92ll come.\x94 At the entrance of the two ladies, there rose at once a faint buzz and murmur. Lady Valleys, whose ample presence radiated suddenly a businesslike and cheery confidence, went to a bedside and sat down. But Barbara stood in a thin streak of the July sunlight, uncertain where to begin, amongst the faces turned towards her. The poor dears looked so humble, and so wistful, and so tired. There was one lying quite flat, who had not even raised her head to see who had come in. That slumbering, pale, high cheek-boned face had a frailty as if a touch, a breath, would shatter it; a wisp of the blackest hair, finer than silk, lay across the forehead; the closed eyes were deep sunk; one hand, scarred almost to the bone with work, rested above her breast. She breathed between lips which had no colour. About her, sleeping, was a kind of beauty. And there came over the girl a queer rush of emotion. The sleeper seemed so apart from everything there, from all the formality and stiffness of the ward. To look at her swept away the languid, hollow feeling with which she had come in; it made her think of the tors at home, when the wind was blowing, and all was bare, and grand, and sometimes terrible. There was something elemental in that still sleep. And the old lady in the next led, with a brown wrinkled face and bright black eyes brimful of life, seemed almost vulgar beside such remote tranquillity, while she was telling Barbara that a little bunch of heather in the better half of a soap-dish on the window-sill had come from Wales, because, as she explained: \x93My mother was born in Stirling, dearie; so I likes a bit of heather, though I never been out o\x92 Bethnal Green meself.\x94 But when Barbara again passed, the sleeping woman was sitting up, and looked but a poor ordinary thing\x97her strange fragile beauty all withdrawn. It was a relief when Lady Valleys said: \x93My dear, my Naval Bazaar at five-thirty; and while I\x92m there you must go home and have a rest, and freshen yourself up for the evening. We dine at Plassey House.\x94 The Duchess of Gloucester\x92s Ball, a function which no one could very well miss, had been fixed for this late date owing to the Duchess\x92s announced desire to prolong the season and so help the hackney cabmen; and though everybody sympathized, it had been felt by most that it would be simpler to go away, motor up on the day of the Ball, and motor down again on the following morning. And throughout the week by which the season was thus prolonged, in long rows at the railway stations, and on their stands, the hackney cabmen, unconscious of what was being done for them, waited, patient as their horses. But since everybody was making this special effort, an exceptionally large, exclusive, and brilliant company reassembled at Gloucester House. In the vast ballroom over the medley of entwined revolving couples, punkahs had been fixed, to clear and freshen the languid air, and these huge fans, moving with incredible slowness, drove a faint refreshing draught down over the sea of white shirt-fronts and bare necks, and freed the scent from innumerable flowers. Late in the evening, close by one of the great clumps of bloom, a very pretty woman stood talking to Bertie Caradoc. She was his cousin, Lily Malvezin, sister of Geoffrey Winlow, and wife of a Liberal peer, a charming creature, whose pink cheeks, bright eyes, quick lips, and rounded figure, endowed her with the prettiest air of animation. And while she spoke she kept stealing sly glances at her partner, trying as it were to pierce the armour of that self-contained young man. \x93No, my dear,\x94 she said in her mocking voice, \x93you\x92ll never persuade me that Miltoun is going to catch on. \x91Il est trop intransigeant\x92. Ah! there\x92s Babs!\x94 For the girl had come gliding by, her eyes wandering lazily, her lips just parted; her neck, hardly less pale than her white frock; her face pale, and marked with languor, under the heavy coil of her tawny hair; and her swaying body seeming with each turn of the waltz to be caught by the arms of her partner from out of a swoon. With that immobility of lips, learned by all imprisoned in Society, Lily Malvezin murmured: \x93Who\x92s that she\x92s dancing with? Is it the dark horse, Bertie?\x94 Through lips no less immobile Bertie answered: \x93Forty to one, no takers.\x94 But those inquisitive bright eyes still followed Barbara, drifting in the dance, like a great waterlily caught in the swirl of a mill pool; and the thought passed through that pretty head: \x93She\x92s hooked him. It\x92s naughty of Babs, really!\x94 And then she saw leaning against a pillar another whose eyes also were following those two; and she thought: \x93H\x92m! Poor Claud\x97no wonder he\x92s looking like that. Oh! Babs!\x94 By one of the statues on the terrace Barbara and her partner stood, where trees, disfigured by no gaudy lanterns, offered the refreshment of their darkness and serenity. Wrapped in her new pale languor, still breathing deeply from the waltz, she seemed to Courtier too utterly moulded out of loveliness. To what end should a man frame speeches to a vision! She was but an incarnation of beauty imprinted on the air, and would fade out at a touch-like the sudden ghosts of enchantment that came to one under the blue, and the starlit snow of a mountain night, or in a birch wood all wistful golden! Speech seemed but desecration! Besides, what of interest was there for him to say in this world of hers, so bewildering and of such glib assurance\x97this world that was like a building, whose every window was shut and had a blind drawn down. A building that admitted none who had not sworn, as it were, to believe it the world, the whole world, and nothing but the world, outside which were only the nibbled remains of what had built it. This, world of Society, in which he felt like one travelling through a desert, longing to meet a fellow-creature. The voice of Harbinger behind them said: \x93Lady-Babs!\x94 Long did the punkahs waft their breeze over that brave-hued wheel of pleasure, and the sound of the violins quaver and wail out into the morning. Then quickly, as the spangles of dew vanish off grass when the sun rises, all melted away; and in the great rooms were none but flunkeys presiding over the polished surfaces like flamingoes by some lakeside at dawn. CHAPTER III A brick dower-house of the Fitz-Harolds, just outside the little seaside town of Nettlefold, sheltered the tranquil days of Lord Dennis. In that south-coast air, sanest and most healing in all England, he raged very slowly, taking little thought of death, and much quiet pleasure in his life. Like the tall old house with its high windows and squat chimneys, he was marvellously self-contained. His books, for he somewhat passionately examined old civilizations, and described their habits from time to time with a dry and not too poignant pen in a certain old-fashioned magazine; his microscope, for he studied infusoria; and the fishing boat of his friend John Bogle, who had long perceived that Lord Dennis was the biggest fish he ever caught; all these, with occasional visitors, and little runs to London, to Monkland, and other country houses, made up the sum of a life which, if not desperately beneficial, was uniformly kind and harmless, and, by its notorious simplicity, had a certain negative influence not only on his own class but on the relations of that class with the country at large. It was commonly said in Nettlefold, that he was a gentleman; if they were all like him there wasn\x92t much in all this talk against the Lords. The shop people and lodging-house keepers felt that the interests of the country were safer in his hands: than in the hands of people who wanted to meddle with everything for the good of those who were only anxious to be let alone. A man too who could so completely forget he was the son of a Duke, that other people never forgot it, was the man for their money. It was true that he had never had a say in public affairs; but this was overlooked, because he could have had it if he liked, and the fact that he did not like, only showed once more that he was a gentleman. Just as he was the one personality of the little town against whom practically nothing was ever, said, so was his house the one house which defied criticism. Time had made it utterly suitable. The ivied walls, and purplish roof lichened yellow in places, the quiet meadows harbouring ponies and kine, reaching from it to the sea\x97all was mellow. In truth it made all the other houses of the town seem shoddy\x97standing alone beyond them, like its master, if anything a little too esthetically remote from common wants. He had practically no near neighbours of whom he saw anything, except once in a way young Harbinger three miles distant at Whitewater. But since he had the faculty of not being bored with his own society, this did not worry him. Of local charity, especially to the fishers of the town, whose winter months were nowadays very bare of profit, he was prodigal to the verge of extravagance, for his income was not great. But in politics, beyond acting as the figure-head of certain municipal efforts, he took little or no part. His Toryism indeed was of the mild order, that had little belief in the regeneration of the country by any means but those of kindly feeling between the classes. When asked how that was to be brought about, he would answer with his dry, slightly malicious, suavity, that if you stirred hornets\x92 nests with sticks the hornets would come forth. Having no land, he was shy of expressing himself on that vexed question; but if resolutely attacked would give utterance to some such sentiment as this: \x93The land\x92s best in our hands on the whole, but we want fewer dogs-in-the-manger among us.\x94 He had, as became one of his race, a feeling for land, tender and protective, and could not bear to think of its being put out to farm with that cold Mother, the State. He was ironical over the views of Radicals or Socialists, but disliked to hear such people personally abused behind their backs. It must be confessed, however, that if contradicted he increased considerably the ironical decision of his sentiments. Withdrawn from all chance in public life of enforcing his views on others, the natural aristocrat within him was forced to find some expression. Each year, towards the end of July, he placed his house at the service of Lord Valleys, who found it a convenient centre for attending Goodwood. It was on the morning after the Duchess of Gloucester\x92s Ball, that he received this note: \x93VALLEYS HOUSE. \x93DEAREST UNCLE DENNIS, \x93May I come down to you a little before time and rest? London is so terribly hot. Mother has three functions still to stay for, and I shall have to come back again for our last evening, the political one\x97so I don\x92t want to go all the way to Monkland; and anywhere else, except with you, would be rackety. Eustace looks so seedy. I\x92ll try and bring him, if I may. Granny is terribly well. \x93Best love, dear, from your \x93BABS.\x94 The same afternoon she came, but without Miltoun, driving up from the station in a fly. Lord Dennis met her at the gate; and, having kissed her, looked at her somewhat anxiously, caressing his white peaked beard. He had never yet known Babs sick of anything, except when he took her out in John Bogle\x92s boat. She was certainly looking pale, and her hair was done differently\x97a fact disturbing to one who did not discover it. Slipping his arm through hers he led her out into a meadow still full of buttercups, where an old white pony, who had carried her in the Row twelve years ago, came up to them and rubbed his muzzle against her waist. And suddenly there rose in Lord Dennis the thoroughly discomforting and strange suspicion that, though the child was not going to cry, she wanted time to get over the feeling that she was. Without appearing to separate himself from her, he walked to the wall at the end of the field, and stood looking at the sea. The tide was nearly up; the South wind driving over it brought him the scent of the sea-flowers, and the crisp rustle of little waves swimming almost to his feet. Far out, where the sunlight fell, the smiling waters lay white and mysterious in July haze, giving him a queer feeling. But Lord Dennis, though he had his moments of poetic sentiment, was on the whole quite able to keep the sea in its proper place\x97for after all it was the English Channel; and like a good Englishman he recognized that if you once let things get away from their names, they ceased to be facts, and if they ceased to be facts, they became\x97the devil! In truth he was not thinking much of the sea, but of Barbara. It was plain that she was in trouble of some kind. And the notion that Babs could find trouble in life was extraordinarily queer; for he felt, subconsciously, what a great driving force of disturbance was necessary to penetrate the hundred folds of the luxurious cloak enwrapping one so young and fortunate. It was not Death; therefore it must be Love; and he thought at once of that fellow with the red moustaches. Ideas were all very well\x97no one would object to as many as you liked, in their proper place\x97the dinner-table, for example. But to fall in love, if indeed it were so, with a man who not only had ideas, but an inclination to live up to them, and on them, and on nothing else, seemed to Lord Dennis \x91outre\x92. She had followed him to the wall, and he looked\x97at her dubiously. \x93To rest in the waters of Lethe, Babs? By the way, seen anything of our friend Mr. Courtier? Very picturesque\x97that Quixotic theory of life!\x94 And in saying that, his voice (like so many refined voices which have turned their backs on speculation) was triple-toned-mocking at ideas, mocking at itself for mocking at ideas, yet showing plainly that at bottom it only mocked at itself for mocking at ideas, because it would be, as it were, crude not to do so. But Barbara did not answer his question, and began to speak of other things. And all that afternoon and evening she talked away so lightly that Lord Dennis, but for his instinct, would have been deceived. That wonderful smiling mask\x97the inscrutability of Youth\x97was laid aside by her at night. Sitting at her window, under the moon, \x91a gold-bright moth slow-spinning up the sky,\x92 she watched the darkness hungrily, as though it were a great thought into whose heart she was trying to see. Now and then she stroked herself, getting strange comfort out of the presence of her body. She had that old unhappy feeling of having two selves within her. And this soft night full of the quiet stir of the sea, and of dark immensity, woke in her a terrible longing to be at one with something, somebody, outside herself. At the Ball last night the \x91flying feeling\x92 had seized on her again; and was still there\x97a queer manifestation of her streak of recklessness. And this result of her contacts with Courtier, this \x91cacoethes volandi\x92, and feeling of clipped wings, hurt her\x97as being forbidden hurts a child. She remembered how in the housekeeper\x92s room at Monkland there lived a magpie who had once sought shelter in an orchid-house from some pursuer. As soon as they thought him wedded to civilization, they had let him go, to see whether he would come back. For hours he had sat up in a high tree, and at last come down again to his cage; whereupon, fearing lest the rooks should attack him when he next took this voyage of discovery, they clipped one of his wings. After that the twilight bird, though he lived happily enough, hopping about his cage and the terrace which served him for exercise yard, would seem at times restive and frightened, moving his wings as if flying in spirit, and sad that he must stay on earth. So, too, at her window Barbara fluttered her wings; then, getting into bed, lay sighing and tossing. A clock struck three; and seized by an intolerable impatience at her own discomfort, she slipped a motor coat over her night-gown, put on slippers, and stole out into the passage. The house was very still. She crept downstairs, smothering her footsteps. Groping her way through the hall, inhabited by the thin ghosts of would-be light, she slid back the chain of the door, and fled towards the sea. She made no more noise running in the dew, than a bird following the paths of air; and the two ponies, who felt her figure pass in the darkness, snuffled, sending out soft sighs of alarm amongst the closed buttercups. She climbed the wall over to the beach. While she was running, she had fully meant to dash into the sea and cool herself, but it was so black, with just a thin edging scarf of white, and the sky was black, bereft of lights, waiting for the day! She stood, and looked. And all the leapings and pulsings of flesh and spirit slowly died in that wide dark loneliness, where the only sound was the wistful breaking of small waves. She was well used to these dead hours\x97only last night, at this very time, Harbinger\x92s arm had been round her in a last waltz! But here the dead hours had such different faces, wide-eyed, solemn, and there came to Barbara, staring out at them, a sense that the darkness saw her very soul, so that it felt little and timid within her. She shivered in her fur-lined coat, as if almost frightened at finding herself so marvellously nothing before that black sky and dark sea, which seemed all one, relentlessly great.... And crouching down, she waited for the dawn to break. It came from over the Downs, sweeping a rush of cold air on its wings, flighting towards the sea. With it the daring soon crept back into her blood. She stripped, and ran down into the dark water, fast growing pale. It covered her jealously, and she set to work to swim. The water was warmer than the air. She lay on her back and splashed, watching the sky flush. To bathe like this in the half-dark, with her hair floating out, and no wet clothes clinging to her limbs, gave her the joy of a child doing a naughty thing. She swam out of her depth, then scared at her own adventure, swam in again as the sun rose. She dashed into her two garments, climbed the wall, and scurried back to the house. All her dejection, and feverish uncertainty were gone; she felt keen, fresh, terribly hungry, and stealing into the dark dining-room, began rummaging for food. She found biscuits, and was still munching, when in the open doorway she saw Lord Dennis, a pistol in one hand and a lighted candle in the other. With his carved features and white beard above an old blue dressing-gown, he looked impressive, having at the moment a distinct resemblance to Lady Casterley, as though danger had armoured him in steel. \x93You call this resting!\x94 he said, dryly; then, looking at her drowned hair, added: \x93I see you have already entrusted your trouble to the waters of Lethe.\x94 But without answer Barbara vanished into the dim hall and up the stairs. CHAPTER IV While Barbara was swimming to meet the dawn, Miltoun was bathing in those waters of mansuetude and truth which roll from wall to wall in the British House of Commons. In that long debate on the Land question, for which he had waited to make his first speech, he had already risen nine times without catching the Speaker\x92s eye, and slowly a sense of unreality was creeping over him. Surely this great Chamber, where without end rose the small sound of a single human voice, and queer mechanical bursts of approbation and resentment, did not exist at all but as a gigantic fancy of his own! And all these figures were figments of his brain! And when he at last spoke, it would be himself alone that he addressed! The torpid air tainted with human breath, the unwinking stare of the countless lights, the long rows of seats, the queer distant rounds of pale listening flesh perched up so high, they were all emanations of himself! Even the coming and going in the gangway was but the coming and going of little wilful parts of him! And rustling deep down in this Titanic creature of his fancy was \x91the murmuration\x92 of his own unspoken speech, sweeping away the puff balls of words flung up by that far-away, small, varying voice. Then, suddenly all that dream creature had vanished; he was on his feet, with a thumping heart, speaking. Soon he had no tremors, only a dim consciousness that his words sounded strange, and a queer icy pleasure in flinging them out into the silence. Round him there seemed no longer men, only mouths and eyes. And he had enjoyment in the feeling that with these words of his he was holding those hungry mouths and eyes dumb and unmoving. Then he knew that he had reached the end of what he had to say, and sat down, remaining motionless in the centre of a various sound; staring at the back of the head in front of him, with his hands clasped round his knee. And soon, when that little faraway voice was once more speaking, he took his hat, and glancing neither to right nor left, went out. Instead of the sensation of relief and wild elation which fills the heart of those who have taken the first plunge, Miltoun had nothing in his deep dark well but the waters of bitterness. In truth, with the delivery of that speech he had but parted with what had been a sort of anodyne to suffering. He had only put the fine point on his conviction, of how vain was his career now that he could not share it with Audrey Noel. He walked slowly towards the Temple, along the riverside, where the lamps were paling into nothingness before that daily celebration of Divinity, the meeting of dark and light. For Miltoun was not one of those who take things lying down; he took things desperately, deeply, and with revolt. He took them like a rider riding himself, plunging at the dig of his own spurs, chafing and wincing at the cruel tugs of his own bitt; bearing in his friendless, proud heart all the burden of struggles which shallower or more genial natures shared with others. He looked hardly less haggard, walking home, than some of those homeless ones who slept nightly by the river, as though they knew that to lie near one who could so readily grant oblivion, alone could save them from seeking that consolation. He was perhaps unhappier than they, whose spirits, at all events, had long ceased to worry them, having oozed out from their bodies under the foot of Life: Now that Audrey Noel was lost to him, her loveliness and that indescribable quality which made her lovable, floated before him, the very torture-flowers of a beauty never to be grasped\x97yet, that he could grasp, \x91if he only would! That was the heart and fervour of his suffering. To be grasped if he only would! He was suffering, too, physically from a kind of slow fever, the result of his wetting on the day when he last saw her. And through that latent fever, things and feelings, like his sensations in the House before his speech, were all as it were muffled in a horrible way, as if they all came to him wrapped in a sort of flannel coating, through which he could not cut. And all the time there seemed to be within him two men at mortal grips with one another; the man of faith in divine sanction and authority, on which all his beliefs had hitherto hinged, and a desperate warm-blooded hungry creature. He was very miserable, craving strangely for the society of someone who could understand what he was feeling, and, from long habit of making no confidants, not knowing how to satisfy that craving. It was dawn when he reached his rooms; and, sure that he would not sleep, he did not even go to bed, but changed his clothes, made himself some coffee, and sat down at the window which overlooked the flowered courtyard. In Middle Temple Hall a Ball was still in progress, though the glamour from its Chinese lanterns was already darkened and gone. Miltoun saw a man and a girl, sheltered by an old fountain, sitting out their last dance. Her head had sunk on her partner\x92s shoulder; their lips were joined. And there floated up to the window the scent of heliotrope, with the tune of the waltz that those two should have been dancing. This couple so stealthily enlaced, the gleam of their furtively turned eyes, the whispering of their lips, that stony niche below the twittering sparrows, so cunningly sought out\x97it was the world he had abjured! When he looked again, they\x97like a vision seen\x97had stolen away and gone; the music too had ceased, there was no scent of heliotrope. In the stony niche crouched a stray cat watching the twittering sparrows. Miltoun went out, and, turning into the empty Strand, walked on\x97without heeding where, till towards five o\x92clock he found himself on Putney Bridge. He rested there, leaning over the parapet, looking down at the grey water. The sun was just breaking through the heat haze; early waggons were passing, and already men were coming in to work. To what end did the river wander up and down; and a human river flow across it twice every day? To what end were men and women suffering? Of the full current of this life Miltoun could no more see the aim, than that of the wheeling gulls in the early sunlight. Leaving the bridge he made towards Barnes Common. The night was still ensnared there on the gorse bushes grey with cobwebs and starry dewdrops. He passed a tramp family still sleeping, huddled all together. Even the homeless lay in each other\x92s arms! From the Common he emerged on the road near the gates of Ravensham; turning in there, he found his way to the kitchen garden, and sat down on a bench close to the raspberry bushes. They were protected from thieves, but at Miltoun\x92s approach two blackbirds flustered out through the netting and flew away. His long figure resting so motionless impressed itself on the eyes of a gardener, who caused a report to be circulated that his young lordship was in the fruit garden. It reached the ears of Clifton, who himself came out to see what this might mean. The old man took his stand in front of Miltoun very quietly. \x93You have come to breakfast, my lord?\x94 \x93If my grandmother will have me, Clifton.\x94 \x93I understood your lordship was speaking last night.\x94 \x93I was.\x94 \x93You find the House of Commons satisfactory, I hope.\x94 \x93Fairly, thank you, Clifton.\x94 \x93They are not what they were in the great days of your grandfather, I believe. He had a very good opinion of them. They vary, no doubt.\x94 \x93Tempora mutantur.\x94 \x93That is so. I find quite anew spirit towards public affairs. The ha\x92penny Press; one takes it in, but one hardly approves. I shall be anxious to read your speech. They say a first speech is a great strain.\x94 \x93It is rather.\x94 \x93But you had no reason to be anxious. I\x92m sure it was beautiful.\x94 Miltoun saw that the old man\x92s thin sallow cheeks had flushed to a deep orange between his snow-white whiskers. \x93I have looked forward to this day,\x94 he stammered, \x93ever since I knew your lordship\x97twenty-eight years. It is the beginning.\x94 \x93Or the end, Clifton.\x94 The old man\x92s face fell in a look of deep and concerned astonishment. \x93No, no,\x94 he said; \x93with your antecedents, never.\x94 Miltoun took his hand. \x93Sorry, Clifton\x97didn\x92t mean to shock you.\x94 And for a minute neither spoke, looking at their clasped hands as if surprised. \x93Would your lordship like a bath\x97breakfast is still at eight. I can procure you a razor.\x94 When Miltoun entered the breakfast room, his grandmother, with a copy of the Times in her hands, was seated before a grape fruit, which, with a shredded wheat biscuit, constituted her first meal. Her appearance hardly warranted Barbara\x92s description of \x91terribly well\x92; in truth she looked a little white, as if she had been feeling the heat. But there was no lack of animation in her little steel-grey eyes, nor of decision in her manner. \x93I see,\x94 she said, \x93that you\x92ve taken a line of your own, Eustace. I\x92ve nothing to say against that; in fact, quite the contrary. But remember this, my dear, however you may change you mustn\x92t wobble. Only one thing counts in that place, hitting the same nail on the head with the same hammer all the time. You aren\x92t looking at all well.\x94 Miltoun, bending to kiss her, murmured: \x93Thanks, I\x92m all right.\x94 \x93Nonsense,\x94 replied Lady Casterley. \x93They don\x92t look after you. Was your mother in the House?\x94 \x93I don\x92t think so.\x94 \x93Exactly. And what is Barbara about? She ought to be seeing to you.\x94 \x93Barbara is down with Uncle Dennis.\x94 Lady Casterley set her jaw; then looking her grandson through and through, said: \x93I shall take you down there this very day. I shall have the sea to you. What do you say, Clifton?\x94 \x93His lordship does look pale.\x94 \x93Have the carriage, and we\x92ll go from Clapham Junction. Thomas can go in and fetch you some clothes. Or, better, though I dislike them, we can telephone to your mother for a car. It\x92s very hot for trains. Arrange that, please, Clifton!\x94 To this project Miltoun raised no objection. And all through the drive he remained sunk in an indifference and lassitude which to Lady Casterley seemed in the highest degree ominous. For lassitude, to her, was the strange, the unpardonable, state. The little great lady\x97casket of the aristocratic principle\x97was permeated to the very backbone with the instinct of artificial energy, of that alert vigour which those who have nothing socially to hope for are forced to develop, lest they should decay and be again obliged to hope. To speak honest truth, she could not forbear an itch to run some sharp and foreign substance into her grandson, to rouse him somehow, for she knew the reason of his state, and was temperamentally out of patience with such a cause for backsliding. Had it been any other of her grandchildren she would not have hesitated, but there was that in Miltoun which held even Lady Casterley in check, and only once during the four hours of travel did she attempt to break down his reserve. She did it in a manner very soft for her\x97was he not of all living things the hope and pride of her heart? Tucking her little thin sharp hand under his arm, she said quietly: \x93My dear, don\x92t brood over it. That will never do.\x94 But Miltoun removed her hand gently, and laid it back on the dust rug, nor did he answer, or show other sign of having heard. And Lady Casterley, deeply wounded, pressed her faded lips together, and said sharply: \x93Slower, please, Frith!\x94 CHAPTER V It was to Barbara that Miltoun unfolded, if but little, the trouble of his spirit, lying that same afternoon under a ragged tamarisk hedge with the tide far out. He could never have done this if there had not been between them the accidental revelation of that night at Monkland; nor even then perhaps had he not felt in this young sister of his the warmth of life for which he was yearning. In such a matter as love Barbara was the elder of these two. For, besides the motherly knowledge of the heart peculiar to most women, she had the inherent woman-of-the-worldliness to be expected of a daughter of Lord and Lady Valleys. If she herself were in doubt as to the state of her affections, it was not as with Miltoun, on the score of the senses and the heart, but on the score of her spirit and curiosity, which Courtier had awakened and caused to flap their wings a little. She worried over Miltoun\x92s forlorn case; it hurt her too to think of Mrs. Noel eating her heart out in that lonely cottage. A sister so\x97good and earnest as Agatha had ever inclined Barbara to a rebellious view of morals, and disinclined her altogether to religion. And so, she felt that if those two could not be happy apart, they should be happy together, in the name of all the joy there was in life! And while her brother lay face to the sky under the tamarisks, she kept trying to think of how to console him, conscious that she did not in the least understand the way he thought about things. Over the fields behind, the larks were hymning the promise of the unripe corn; the foreshore was painted all colours, from vivid green to mushroom pink; by the edge of the blue sea little black figures stooped, gathering sapphire. The air smelled sweet in the shade of the tamarisk; there was ineffable peace. And Barbara, covered by the network of sunlight, could not help impatience with a suffering which seemed to her so corrigible by action. At last she ventured: \x93Life is short, Eusty!\x94 Miltoun\x92s answer, given without movement, startled her: \x93Persuade me that it is, Babs, and I\x92ll bless you. If the singing of these larks means nothing, if that blue up there is a morass of our invention, if we are pettily, creeping on furthering nothing, if there\x92s no purpose in our lives, persuade me of it, for God\x92s sake!\x94 Carried suddenly beyond her depth, Barbara could only put out her hand, and say: \x93Oh! don\x92t take things so hard!\x94 \x93Since you say that life is short,\x94 Miltoun muttered, with his smile, \x93you shouldn\x92t spoil it by feeling pity! In old days we went to the Tower for our convictions. We can stand a little private roasting, I hope; or has the sand run out of us altogether?\x94 Stung by his tone, Barbara answered in rather a hard voice: \x93What we must bear, we must, I suppose. But why should we make trouble? That\x92s what I can\x92t stand!\x94 \x93O profound wisdom!\x94 Barbara flushed. \x93I love Life!\x94 she said. The galleons of the westering sun were already sailing in a broad gold fleet straight for that foreshore where the little black stooping figures had not yet finished their toil, the larks still sang over the unripe corn\x97when Harbinger, galloping along the sands from Whitewater to Sea House, came on that silent couple walking home to dinner. It would not be safe to say of this young man that he readily diagnosed a spiritual atmosphere, but this was the less his demerit, since everything from his cradle up had conspired to keep the spiritual thermometer of his surroundings at 60 in the shade. And the fact that his own spiritual thermometer had now run up so that it threatened to burst the bulb, rendered him less likely than ever to see what was happening with other people\x92s. Yet, he did notice that Barbara was looking pale, and\x97it seemed\x97sweeter than ever.... With her eldest brother he always somehow felt ill at ease. He could not exactly afford to despise an uncompromising spirit in one of his own order, but he was no more impervious than others to Miltoun\x92s caustic, thinly-veiled contempt for the commonplace; and having a full-blooded belief in himself\x97-usual with men of fine physique, whose lots are so cast that this belief can never or almost never be really shaken\x97he greatly disliked the feeling of being a little looked down on. It was an intense relief, when, saying that he wanted a certain magazine, Miltoun strode off into the town. To Harbinger, no less than to Miltoun and Barbara, last night had been bitter and restless. The sight of that pale swaying figure, with the parted lips, whirling round in Courtier\x92s arms, had clung to his vision ever since, the Ball. During his own last dance with her he had been almost savagely silent; only by a great effort restraining his tongue from mordant allusions to that \x91prancing, red-haired fellow,\x92 as he secretly called the champion of lost causes. In fact, his sensations there and since had been a revelation, or would have teen if he could have stood apart to see them. True, he had gone about next day with his usual cool, off-hand manner, because one naturally did not let people see, but it was with such an inner aching and rage of want and jealousy as to really merit pity. Men of his physically big, rather rushing, type, are the last to possess their souls in patience. Walking home after the Ball he had determined to follow her down to the sea, where she had said, so maliciously; that she was going. After a second almost sleepless night he had no longer any hesitation. He must see her! After all, a man might go to his own \x91place\x92 with impunity; he did not care if it were a pointed thing to do.... Pointed! The more pointed the better! There was beginning to be roused in him an ugly stubbornness of male determination. She should not escape him! But now that he was walking at her side, all that determination and assurance melted to perplexed humility. He marched along by his horse with his head down, just feeling the ache of being so close to her and yet so far; angry with his own silence and awkwardness, almost angry with her for her loveliness, and the pain it made him suffer. When they reached the house, and she left him at the stable-yard, saying she was going to get some flowers, he jerked the beast\x92s bridle and swore at it for its slowness in entering the stable. He, was terrified that she would be gone before he could get into the garden; yet half afraid of finding her there. But she was still plucking carnations by the box hedge which led to the conservatories. And as she rose from gathering those blossoms, before he knew what he was doing, Harbinger had thrown his arm around her, held her as in a vice, kissed her unmercifully. She seemed to offer no resistance, her smooth cheeks growing warmer and warmer, even her lips passive; but suddenly he recoiled, and his heart stood still at his own outrageous daring. What had he done? He saw her leaning back almost buried in the clipped box hedge, and heard her say with a sort of faint mockery: \x93Well!\x94 He would have flung himself down on his knees to ask for pardon but for the thought that someone might come. He muttered hoarsely: \x93By God, I was mad!\x94 and stood glowering in sullen suspense between hardihood and fear. He heard her say, quietly: \x93Yes, you were-rather.\x94 Then seeing her put her hand up to her lips as if he had hurt them, he muttered brokenly: \x93Forgive me, Babs!\x94 There was a full minute\x92s silence while he stood there, no longer daring to look at her, beaten all over by his emotions. Then, with bewilderment, he heard her say: \x93I didn\x92t mind it\x97for once!\x94 He looked up at that. How could she love him, and speak so coolly! How could she not mind, if she did not love him! She was passing her hands over her face and neck and hair, repairing the damage of his kisses. \x93Now shall we go in?\x94 she said. Harbinger took a step forward. \x93I love you so,\x94 he said; \x93I will put my life in your hands, and you shall throw it away.\x94 At those words, of whose exact nature he had very little knowledge, he saw her smile. \x93If I let you come within three yards, will you be good?\x94 He bowed; and, in silence, they walked towards the house. Dinner that evening was a strange, uncomfortable meal. But its comedy, too subtly played for Miltoun and Lord Dennis, seemed transparent to the eyes of Lady Casterley; for, when Harbinger had sallied forth to ride back along the sands, she took her candle and invited Barbara to retire. Then, having admitted her granddaughter to the apartment always reserved for herself, and specially furnished with practically nothing, she sat down opposite that tall, young, solid figure, as it were taking stock of it, and said: \x93So you are coming to your senses, at all events. Kiss me!\x94 Barbara, stooping to perform this rite, saw a tear stealing down the carved fine nose. Knowing that to notice it would be too dreadful, she raised herself, and went to the window. There, staring out over the dark fields and dark sea, by the side of which Harbinger was riding home, she put her hand up to her, lips, and thought for the hundredth time: \x93So that\x92s what it\x92s like!\x94 CHAPTER VI Three days after his first, and as he promised himself, his last Society Ball, Courtier received a note from Audrey Noel, saying that she had left Monkland for the present, and come up to a little flat\x97on the riverside not far from Westminster. When he made his way there that same July day, the Houses of Parliament were bright under a sun which warmed all the grave air emanating from their counsels of perfection: Courtier passed by dubiously. His feelings in the presence of those towers were always a little mixed. There was not so much of the poet in him as to cause him to see nothing there at all save only same lines against the sky, but there was enough of the poet to make him long to kick something; and in this mood he wended his way to the riverside. Mrs. Noel was not at home, but since the maid informed him that she would be in directly, he sat down to wait. Her flat, which was on\x97the first floor, overlooked the river and had evidently been taken furnished, for there were visible marks of a recent struggle with an Edwardian taste which, flushed from triumph over Victorianism, had filled the rooms with early Georgian remains. On the only definite victory, a rose-coloured window seat of great comfort and little age, Courtier sat down, and resigned himself to doing nothing with the ease of an old soldier. To the protective feeling he had once had for a very graceful, dark-haired child, he joined not only the championing pity of a man of warm heart watching a woman in distress, but the impatience of one, who, though temperamentally incapable of feeling oppressed himself, rebelled at sight of all forms of tyranny affecting others. The sight of the grey towers, still just visible, under which Miltoun and his father sat, annoyed him deeply; symbolizing to him, Authority\x97foe to his deathless mistress, the sweet, invincible lost cause of Liberty. But presently the river; bringing up in flood the unbound water that had bathed every shore, touched all sands, and seen the rising and falling of each mortal star, so soothed him with its soundless hymn to Freedom, that Audrey Noel coming in with her hands full of flowers, found him sleeping firmly, with his mouth shut. Noiselessly putting down the flowers, she waited for his awakening. That sanguine visage, with its prominent chin, flaring moustaches, and eyebrows raised rather V-shaped above his closed eyes, wore an expression of cheery defiance even in sleep; and perhaps no face in all London was so utterly its obverse, as that of this dark, soft-haired woman, delicate, passive, and tremulous with pleasure at sight of the only person in the world from whom she felt she might learn of Miltoun, without losing her self-respect. He woke at last, and manifesting no discomfiture, said: \x93It was like you not to wake me.\x94 They sat for a long while talking, the riverside traffic drowsily accompanying their voices, the flowers drowsily filling the room with scent; and when Courtier left, his heart was sore. She had not spoken of herself at all, but had talked nearly all the time of Barbara, praising her beauty and high spirit; growing pale once or twice, and evidently drinking in with secret avidity every allusion to Miltoun. Clearly, her feelings had not changed, though she would not show them! Courtier\x92s pity for her became well-nigh violent. It was in such a mood, mingled with very different feelings, that he donned evening clothes and set out to attend the last gathering of the season at Valleys House, a function which, held so late in July, was perforce almost perfectly political. Mounting the wide and shining staircase, that had so often baffled the arithmetic of little Ann, he was reminded of a picture entitled \x91The Steps to Heaven\x92 in his nursery four-and-thirty years before. At the top of this staircase, and surrounded by acquaintances, he came on Harbinger, who nodded curtly. The young man\x92s handsome face and figure appeared to Courtier\x92s jaundiced eye more obviously successful and complacent than ever; so that he passed him by sardonically, and manoeuvred his way towards Lady Valleys, whom he could perceive stationed, like a general, in a little cleared space, where to and fro flowed constant streams of people, like the rays of a star. She was looking her very best, going well with great and highly-polished spaces; and she greeted Courtier with a special cordiality of tone, which had in it, besides kindness towards one who must be feeling a strange bird, a certain diplomatic quality, compounded of desire, as it were, to \x91warn him off,\x92 and fear of saying something that might irritate and make him more dangerous. She had heard, she said, that he was bound for Persia; she hoped he was not going to try and make things more difficult there; then with the words: \x93So good of you to have come!\x94 she became once more the centre of her battlefield. Perceiving that he was finished with, Courtier stood back against a wall and watched. Thus isolated, he was like a solitary cuckoo contemplating the gyrations of a flock of rooks. Their motions seemed a little meaningless to one so far removed from all the fetishes and shibboleths of Westminster. He heard them discussing Miltoun\x92s speech, the real significance of which apparently had only just been grasped. The words \x91doctrinaire,\x92 \x91extremist,\x92 came to his ears, together with the saying \x91a new force.\x92 People were evidently puzzled, disturbed, not pleased\x97as if some star not hitherto accounted for had suddenly appeared amongst the proper constellations. Searching this crowd for Barbara, Courtier had all the time an uneasy sense of shame. What business had he to come amongst these people so strange to him, just for the sake of seeing her! What business had he to be hankering after this girl at all, knowing in his heart that he could not stand the atmosphere she lived in for a week, and that she was utterly unsuited for any atmosphere that he could give her; to say nothing of the unlikelihood that he could flutter the pulses of one half his age! A voice, behind him said: \x93Mr. Courtier!\x94 He turned, and there was Barbara. \x93I want to talk to you about something serious: Will you come into the picture gallery?\x94 When at last they were close to a family group of Georgian Caradocs, and could as it were shut out the throng sufficiently for private speech, she began: \x93Miltoun\x92s so horribly unhappy; I don\x92t know what to do for him: He\x92s making himself ill!\x94 And she suddenly looked up, in Courtier\x92s face. She seemed to him very young, and touching, at that moment. Her eyes had a gleam of faith in them, like a child\x92s eyes; as if she relied on him to straighten out this tangle, to tell her not only about Miltoun\x92s trouble, but about all life, its meaning, and the secret of its happiness: And he said gently: \x93What can I do? Mrs. Noel is in Town. But that\x92s no good, unless\x97\x94 Not knowing how to finish this sentence; he was silent. \x93I wish I were Miltoun,\x94 she muttered. At that quaint saying, Courtier was hard put to it not to take hold of the hands so close to him. This flash of rebellion in her had quickened all his blood. But she seemed to have seen what had passed in him, for her next speech was chilly. \x93It\x92s no good; stupid of me to be worrying you.\x94 \x93It is quite impossible for you to worry me.\x94 Her eyes lifted suddenly from her glove, and looked straight into his. \x93Are you really going to Persia?\x94 \x93Yes.\x94 \x93But I don\x92t want you to, not yet!\x94 and turning suddenly, she left him. Strangely disturbed, Courtier remained motionless, consulting the grave stare of the group of Georgian Caradocs. A voice said: \x93Good painting, isn\x92t it?\x94 Behind him was Lord Harbinger. And once more the memory of Lady Casterley\x92s words; the memory of the two figures with joined hands on the balcony above the election crowd; all his latent jealousy of this handsome young Colossus, his animus against one whom he could, as it were, smell out to be always fighting on the winning side; all his consciousness too of what a lost cause his own was, his doubt whether he were honourable to look on it as a cause at all, flared up in Courtier, so that his answer was a stare. On Harbinger\x92s face, too, there had come a look of stubborn violence slowly working up towards the surface. \x93I said: \x91Good, isn\x92t it?\x92 Mr. Courtier.\x94 \x93I heard you.\x94 \x93And you were pleased to answer?\x94 \x93Nothing.\x94 \x93With the civility which might be expected of your habits.\x94 Coldly disdainful, Courtier answered: \x93If you want to say that sort of thing, please choose a place where I can reply to you,\x94 and turned abruptly on his heel. But he ground his teeth as he made his way out into the street. In Hyde Park the grass was parched and dewless under a sky whose stars were veiled by the heat and dust haze. Never had Courtier so bitterly wanted the sky\x92s consolation\x97the blessed sense of insignificance in the face of the night\x92s dark beauty, which, dwarfing all petty rage and hunger, made men part of its majesty, exalted them to a sense of greatness. CHAPTER VII It was past four o\x92clock the following day when Barbara issued from Valleys House on foot; clad in a pale buff frock, chosen for quietness, she attracted every eye. Very soon entering a taxi-cab, she drove to the Temple, stopped at the Strand entrance, and walked down the little narrow lane into the heart of the Law. Its votaries were hurrying back from the Courts, streaming up from their Chambers for tea, or escaping desperately to Lord\x92s or the Park\x97young votaries, unbound as yet by the fascination of fame or fees. And each, as he passed, looked at Barbara, with his fingers itching to remove his hat, and a feeling that this was She. After a day spent amongst precedents and practice, after six hours at least of trying to discover what chance A had of standing on his rights, or B had of preventing him, it was difficult to feel otherwise about that calm apparition\x97like a golden slim tree walking. One of them, asked by her the way to Miltoun\x92s staircase, preceded her with shy ceremony, and when she had vanished up those dusty stairs, lingered on, hoping that she might find her visitee out, and be obliged to return and ask him the way back. But she did not come, and he went sadly away, disturbed to the very bottom of all that he owned in fee simple. In fact, no one answered Barbara\x92s knock, and discovering that the door yielded, she walked through the lobby past the clerk\x92s den, converted to a kitchen, into the sitting-room. It was empty. She had never been to Miltoun\x92s rooms before, and she stared about her curiously. Since he did not practise, much of the proper gear was absent. The room indeed had a worn carpet, a few old chairs, and was lined from floor to ceiling with books. But the wall space between the windows was occupied by an enormous map of England, scored all over with figures and crosses; and before this map stood an immense desk, on which were piles of double foolscap covered with Miltoun\x92s neat and rather pointed writing. Barbara examined them, puckering up her forehead; she knew that he was working at a book on the land question; but she had never realized that the making of a book requited so much writing. Papers, too, and Blue Books littered a large bureau on which stood bronze busts of AEschylus and Dante. \x93What an uncomfortable place!\x94 she thought. The room, indeed, had an atmosphere, a spirit, which depressed her horribly. Seeing a few flowers down in the court below, she had a longing to get out to them. Then behind her she heard the sound of someone talking. But there was no one in the room; and the effect of this disrupted soliloquy, which came from nowhere, was so uncanny, that she retreated to the door. The sound, as of two spirits speaking in one voice, grew louder, and involuntarily she glanced at the busts. They seemed quite blameless. Though the sound had been behind her when she was at the window, it was again behind her now that she was at the door; and she suddenly realized that it was issuing from a bookcase in the centre of the wall. Barbara had her father\x92s nerve, and walking up to the bookcase she perceived that it had been affixed to, and covered, a door that was not quite closed. She pulled it towards her, and passed through. Across the centre of an unkempt bedroom Miltoun was striding, dressed only in his shirt and trousers. His feet were bare, and his head and hair dripping wet; the look on his thin dark face went to Barbara\x92s heart. She ran forward, and took his hand. This was burning hot, but the sight of her seemed to have frozen his tongue and eyes. And the contrast of his burning hand with this frozen silence, frightened Barbara horribly. She could think of nothing but to put her other hand to his forehead. That too was burning hot! \x93What brought you here?\x94 he said. She could only murmur: \x93Oh! Eusty! Are you ill?\x94 Miltoun took hold of her wrists. \x93It\x92s all right, I\x92ve been working too hard; got a touch of fever.\x94 \x93So I can feel,\x94 murmured Barbara. \x93You ought to be in bed. Come home with me.\x94 Miltoun smiled. \x93It\x92s not a case for leeches.\x94 The look of his smile, the sound of his voice, sent a shudder through her. \x93I\x92m not going to leave you here alone.\x94 But Miltoun\x92s grasp tightened on her wrists. \x93My dear Babs, you will do what I tell you. Go home, hold your tongue, and leave me to burn out in peace.\x94 Barbara sustained that painful grip without wincing; she had regained her calmness. \x93You must come! You haven\x92t anything here, not even a cool drink.\x94 \x93My God! Barley water!\x94 The scorn he put into those two words was more withering than a whole philippic against redemption by creature comforts. And feeling it dart into her, Barbara closed her lips tight. He had dropped her wrists, and again, begun pacing up and down; suddenly he stopped: \x93\x91The stars, sun, moon all shrink away, A desert vast, without a bound, And nothing left to eat or drink, \x93And a dark desert all around.\x92 \x93You should read your Blake, Audrey.\x94 Barbara turned quickly, and went out frightened. She passed through the sitting-room and corridor on to the staircase. He was ill-raving! The fever in Miltoun\x92s veins seemed to have stolen through the clutch of his hands into her own veins. Her face was burning, she thought confusedly, breathed unevenly. She felt sore, and at the same time terribly sorry; and withal there kept rising in her the gusty memory of Harbingers kiss. She hurried down the stairs, turned by instinct down-hill and found herself on the Embankment. And suddenly, with her inherent power of swift decision, she hailed a cab, and drove to the nearest telephone office. CHAPTER VIII To a woman like Audrey Noel, born to be the counterpart and complement of another,\x97whose occupations and effort were inherently divorced from the continuity of any stiff and strenuous purpose of her own, the uprooting she had voluntarily undergone was a serious matter. Bereaved of the faces of her flowers, the friendly sighing of her lime-tree, the wants of her cottagers; bereaved of that busy monotony of little home things which is the stay and solace of lonely women, she was extraordinarily lost. Even music for review seemed to have failed her. She had never lived in London, so that she had not the refuge of old haunts and habits, but had to make her own\x97and to make habits and haunts required a heart that could at least stretch out feelers and lay hold of things, and her heart was not now able. When she had struggled with her Edwardian flat, and laid down her simple routine of meals, she was as stranded as ever was, convict let out of prison. She had not even that great support, the necessity of hiding her feelings for fear of disturbing others. She was planted there, with her longing and grief, and nothing, nobody, to take her out of herself. Having wilfully embraced this position, she tried to make the best of it, feeling it less intolerable, at all events, than staying on at Monkland, where she had made that grievous, and unpardonable error\x97falling in love. This offence, on the part of one who felt within herself a great capacity to enjoy and to confer happiness, had arisen\x97like the other grievous and unpardonable offence, her marriage\x97from too much disposition to yield herself to the personality of another. But it was cold comfort to know that the desire to give and to receive love had twice over left her\x97a dead woman. Whatever the nature of those immature sensations with which, as a girl of twenty, she had accepted her husband, in her feeling towards Miltoun there was not only abandonment, but the higher flame of self-renunciation. She wanted to do the best for him, and had not even the consolation of the knowledge that she had sacrificed herself for his advantage. All had been taken out of her hands! Yet with characteristic fatalism she did not feel rebellious. If it were ordained that she should, for fifty, perhaps sixty years, repent in sterility and ashes that first error of her girlhood, rebellion was, none the less, too far-fetched. If she rebelled, it would not be in spirit, but in action. General principles were nothing to her; she lost no force brooding over the justice or injustice of her situation, but merely tried to digest its facts. The whole day, succeeding Courtier\x92s visit, was spent by her in the National Gallery, whose roof, alone of all in London, seemed to offer her protection. She had found one painting, by an Italian master, the subject of which reminded her of Miltoun; and before this she sat for a very long time, attracting at last the gouty stare of an official. The still figure of this lady, with the oval face and grave beauty, both piqued his curiosity, and stimulated certain moral qualms. She, was undoubtedly waiting for her lover. No woman, in his experience, had ever sat so long before a picture without ulterior motive; and he kept his eyes well opened to see what this motive would be like. It gave him, therefore, a sensation almost amounting to chagrin when coming round once more, he found they had eluded him and gone off together without coming under his inspection. Feeling his feet a good deal, for he had been on them all day, he sat down in the hollow which she had left behind her; and against his will found himself also looking at the picture. It was painted in a style he did not care for; the face of the subject, too, gave him the queer feeling that the gentleman was being roasted inside. He had not been sitting there long, however, before he perceived the lady standing by the picture, and the lips of the gentleman in the picture moving. It seemed to him against the rules, and he got up at once, and went towards it; but as he did so, he found that his eyes were shut, and opened them hastily. There was no one there. From the National Gallery, Audrey had gone into an A.B.C. for tea, and then home. Before the Mansions was a taxi-cab, and the maid met her with the news that \x91Lady Caradoc\x92 was in the sitting-room. Barbara was indeed standing in the middle of the room with a look on her face such as her father wore sometimes on the racecourse, in the hunting field, or at stormy Cabinet Meetings, a look both resolute and sharp. She spoke at once: \x93I got your address from Mr. Courtier. My brother is ill. I\x92m afraid it\x92ll be brain fever, I think you had better go and see him at his rooms in the Temple; there\x92s no time to be lost.\x94 To Audrey everything in the room seemed to go round; yet all her senses were preternaturally acute, so that she could distinctly smell the mud of the river at low tide. She said, with a shudder: \x93Oh! I will go; yes, I will go at once.\x94 \x93He\x92s quite alone. He hasn\x92t asked for you; but I think your going is the only chance. He took me for you. You told me once you were a good nurse.\x94 \x93Yes.\x94 The room was steady enough now, but she had lost the preternatural acuteness of her senses, and felt confused. She heard Barbara say: \x93I can take you to the door in my cab,\x94 and murmuring: \x93I will get ready,\x94 went into her bedroom. For a moment she was so utterly bewildered that she did nothing. Then every other thought was lost in a strange, soft, almost painful delight, as if some new instinct were being born in her; and quickly, but without confusion or hurry, she began packing. She put into a valise her own toilet things; then flannel, cotton-wool, eau de Cologne, hot-water bottle, Etna, shawls, thermometer, everything she had which could serve in illness. Changing to a plain dress, she took up the valise and returned to Barbara. They went out together to the cab. The moment it began to bear her to this ordeal at once so longed-for and so terrible, fear came over her again, so that she screwed herself into the corner, very white and still. She was aware of Barbara calling to the driver: \x93Go by the Strand, and stop at a poulterer\x92s for ice!\x94 And, when the bag of ice had been handed in, heard her saying: \x93I will bring you all you want\x97if he is really going to be ill.\x94 Then, as the cab stopped, and the open doorway of the staircase was before her, all her courage came back. She felt the girl\x92s warm hand against her own, and grasping her valise and the bag of ice, got out, and hurried up the steps. CHAPTER IX On leaving Nettlefold, Miltoun had gone straight back to his rooms, and begun at once to work at his book on the land question. He worked all through that night\x97his third night without sleep, and all the following day. In the evening, feeling queer in the head, he went out and walked up and down the Embankment. Then, fearing to go to bed and lie sleepless, he sat down in his arm-chair. Falling asleep there, he had fearful dreams, and awoke unrefreshed. After his bath, he drank coffee, and again forced himself to work. By the middle of the day he felt dizzy and exhausted, but utterly disinclined to eat. He went out into the hot Strand, bought himself a necessary book, and after drinking more coffee, came back and again began to work. At four o\x92clock he found that he was not taking in the words. His head was burning hot, and he went into his bedroom to bathe it. Then somehow he began walking up and down, talking to himself, as Barbara had found him. She had no sooner gone, than he felt utterly exhausted. A small crucifix hung over his bed, and throwing himself down before it, he remained motionless with his face buried in the coverlet, and his arms stretched out towards the wall. He did not pray, but merely sought rest from sensation. Across his half-hypnotized consciousness little threads of burning fancy kept shooting. Then he could feel nothing but utter physical sickness, and against this his will revolted. He resolved that he would not be ill, a ridiculous log for women to hang over. But the moments of sickness grew longer and more frequent; and to drive them away he rose from his knees, and for some time again walked up and down; then, seized with vertigo, he was obliged to sit on the bed to save himself from falling. From being burning hot he had become deadly cold, glad to cover himself with the bedclothes. The heat soon flamed up in him again; but with a sick man\x92s instinct he did not throw off the clothes, and stayed quite still. The room seemed to have turned to a thick white substance like a cloud, in which he lay enwrapped, unable to move hand or foot. His sense of smell and hearing had become unnaturally acute; he smelled the distant streets, flowers, dust, and the leather of his books, even the scent left by Barbara\x92s clothes, and a curious odour of river mud. A clock struck six, he counted each stroke; and instantly the whole world seemed full of striking clocks, the sound of horses\x92 hoofs, bicycle bells, people\x92s footfalls. His sense of vision, on the contrary, was absorbed in consciousness of this white blanket of cloud wherein he was lifted above the earth, in the midst of a dull incessant hammering. On the surface of the cloud there seemed to be forming a number of little golden spots; these spots were moving, and he saw that they were toads. Then, beyond them, a huge face shaped itself, very dark, as if of bronze, with eyes burning into his brain. The more he struggled to get away from these eyes, the more they bored and burned into him. His voice was gone, so that he was unable to cry out, and suddenly the face marched over him. When he recovered consciousness his head was damp with moisture trickling from something held to his forehead by a figure leaning above him. Lifting his hand he touched a cheek; and hearing a sob instantly suppressed, he sighed. His hand was gently taken; he felt kisses on it. The room was so dark, that he could scarcely see her face\x97his sight too was dim; but he could hear her breathing and the least sound of her dress and movements\x97the scent too of her hands and hair seemed to envelop him, and in the midst of all the acute discomfort of his fever, he felt the band round his brain relax. He did not ask how long she had been there, but lay quite still, trying to keep his eyes on her, for fear of that face, which seemed lurking behind the air, ready to march on him again. Then feeling suddenly that he could not hold it back, he beckoned, and clutched at her, trying to cover himself with the protection of her breast. This time his swoon was not so deep; it gave way to delirium, with intervals when he knew that she was there, and by the shaded candle light could see her in a white garment, floating close to him, or sitting still with her hand on his; he could even feel the faint comfort of the ice cap, and of the scent of eau de Cologne. Then he would lose all consciousness of her presence, and pass through into the incoherent world, where the crucifix above his bed seemed to bulge and hang out, as if it must fall on him. He conceived a violent longing to tear it down, which grew till he had struggled up in bed and wrenched it from off the wall. Yet a mysterious consciousness of her presence permeated even his darkest journeys into the strange land; and once she seemed to be with him, where a strange light showed them fields and trees, a dark line of moor, and a bright sea, all whitened, and flashing with sweet violence. Soon after dawn he had a long interval of consciousness, and took in with a sort of wonder her presence in the low chair by his bed. So still she sat in a white loose gown, pale with watching, her eyes immovably fixed on him, her lips pressed together, and quivering at his faintest motion. He drank in desperately the sweetness of her face, which had so lost remembrance of self. CHAPTER X Barbara gave the news of her brother\x92s illness to no one else, common sense telling her to run no risk of disturbance. Of her own initiative, she brought a doctor, and went down twice a day to hear reports of Miltoun\x92s progress. As a fact, her father and mother had gone to Lord Dennis, for Goodwood, and the chief difficulty had been to excuse her own neglect of that favourite Meeting. She had fallen back on the half-truth that Eustace wanted her in Town; and, since Lord and Lady Valleys had neither of them shaken off a certain uneasiness about their son, the pretext sufficed: It was not until the sixth day, when the crisis was well past and Miltoun quite free from fever, that she again went down to Nettlefold. On arriving she at once sought out her mother, whom she found in her bedroom, resting. It had been very hot at Goodwood. Barbara was not afraid of her\x97she was not, indeed, afraid of anyone, except Miltoun, and in some strange way, a little perhaps of Courtier; yet, when the maid had gone, she did not at once begin her tale. Lady Valleys, who at Goodwood had just heard details of a Society scandal, began a carefully expurgated account of it suitable to her daughter\x92s ears\x97for some account she felt she must give to somebody. \x93Mother,\x94 said Barbara suddenly, \x93Eustace has been ill. He\x92s out of danger now, and going on all right.\x94 Then, looking hard at the bewildered lady, she added: \x93Mrs. Noel is nursing him.\x94 The past tense in which illness had been mentioned, checking at the first moment any rush of panic in Lady Valleys, left her confused by the situation conjured up in Barbara\x92s last words. Instead of feeding that part of man which loves a scandal, she was being fed, always an unenviable sensation. A woman did not nurse a man under such circumstances without being everything to him, in the world\x92s eyes. Her daughter went on: \x93I took her to him. It seemed the only thing to do\x97since it\x92s all through fretting for her. Nobody knows, of course, except the doctor, and\x97Stacey.\x94 \x93Heavens!\x94 muttered Lady Valleys. \x93It has saved him.\x94 The mother instinct in Lady Valleys took sudden fright. \x93Are you telling me the truth, Babs? Is he really out of danger? How wrong of you not to let me know before?\x94 But Barbara did not flinch; and her mother relapsed into rumination. \x93Stacey is a cat!\x94 she said suddenly. The expurgated details of the scandal she had been retailing to her daughter had included the usual maid. She could not find it in her to enjoy the irony of this coincidence. Then, seeing Barbara smile, she said tartly: \x93I fail to see the joke.\x94 \x93Only that I thought you\x92d enjoy my throwing Stacey in, dear.\x94 \x93What! You mean she doesn\x92t know?\x94 \x93Not a word.\x94 Lady Valleys smiled. \x93What a little wretch you are, Babs!\x94 Maliciously she added: \x93Claud and his mother are coming over from Whitewater, with Bertie and Lily Malvezin, you\x92d better go and dress;\x94 and her eyes searched her daughter\x92s so shrewdly, that a flush rose to the girl\x92s cheeks. When she had gone, Lady Valleys rang for her maid again, and relapsed into meditation. Her first thought was to consult her husband; her second that secrecy was strength. Since no one knew but Barbara, no one had better know. Her astuteness and experience comprehended the far-reaching probabilities of this affair. It would not do to take a single false step. If she had no one\x92s action to control but her own and Barbara\x92s, so much the less chance of a slip. Her mind was a strange medley of thoughts and feelings, almost comic, well-nigh tragic; of worldly prudence, and motherly instinct; of warm-blooded sympathy with all love-affairs, and cool-blooded concern for her son\x92s career. It was not yet too late perhaps to prevent real mischief; especially since it was agreed by everyone that the woman was no adventuress. Whatever was done, they must not forget that she had nursed him\x97saved him, Barbara had said! She must be treated with all kindness and consideration. Hastening her toilette, she in turn went to her daughter\x92s room. Barbara was already dressed, leaning out of her window towards the sea. Lady Valleys began almost timidly: \x93My dear, is Eustace out of bed yet?\x94 \x93He was to get up to-day for an hour or two.\x94 \x93I see. Now, would there be any danger if you and I went up and took charge over from Mrs. Noel?\x94 \x93Poor Eusty!\x94 \x93Yes, yes! But, exercise your judgment. Would it harm him?\x94 Barbara was silent. \x93No,\x94 she said at last, \x93I don\x92t suppose it would, now; but it\x92s for the doctor to say.\x94 Lady Valleys exhibited a manifest relief. \x93We\x92ll see him first, of course. Eustace will have to have an ordinary nurse, I suppose, for a bit.\x94 Looking stealthily at Barbara, she added: \x93I mean to be very nice to her; but one mustn\x92t be romantic, you know, Babs.\x94 From the little smile on Barbara\x92s lips she derived no sense of certainty; indeed she was visited by all her late disquietude about her young daughter, by all the feeling that she, as well as Miltoun, was hovering on the verge of some folly. \x93Well, my dear,\x94 she said, \x93I am going down.\x94 But Barbara lingered a little longer in that bedroom where ten nights ago she had lain tossing, till in despair she went and cooled herself in the dark sea. Her last little interview with Courtier stood between her and a fresh meeting with Harbinger, whom at the Valleys House gathering she had not suffered to be alone with her. She came down late. That same evening, out on the beach road, under a sky swarming with stars, the people were strolling\x97folk from the towns, down for their fortnight\x92s holiday. In twos and threes, in parties of six or eight, they passed the wall at the end of Lord Dennis\x92s little domain; and the sound of their sparse talk and laughter, together with the sighing of the young waves, was blown over the wall to the ears of Harbinger, Bertie, Barbara, and Lily Malvezin, when they strolled out after dinner to sniff the sea. The holiday-makers stared dully at the four figures in evening dress looking out above their heads; they had other things than these to think of, becoming more and more silent as the night grew dark. The four young people too were rather silent. There was something in this warm night, with its sighing, and its darkness, and its stars, that was not favourable to talk, so that presently they split into couples, drifting a little apart. Standing there, gripping the wall, it seemed to Harbinger that there were no words left in the world. Not even his worst enemy could have called this young man romantic; yet that figure beside him, the gleam of her neck and her pale cheek in the dark, gave him perhaps the most poignant glimpse of mystery that he had ever had. His mind, essentially that of a man of affairs, by nature and by habit at home amongst the material aspects of things, was but gropingly conscious that here, in this dark night, and the dark sea, and the pale figure of this girl whose heart was dark to him and secret, there was perhaps something\x97yes, something\x97which surpassed the confines of his philosophy, something beckoning him on out of his snug compound into the desert of divinity. If so, it was soon gone in the aching of his senses at the scent of her hair, and the longing to escape from this weird silence. \x93Babs,\x94 he said; \x93have you forgiven me?\x94 Her answer came, without turn of head, natural, indifferent: \x93Yes\x97I told you so.\x94 \x93Is that all you have to say to a fellow?\x94 \x93What shall we talk about\x97the running of Casetta?\x94 Deep down within him Harbinger uttered a noiseless oath. Something sinister was making her behave like this to him! It was that fellow\x97that fellow! And suddenly he said: \x93Tell me this\x97\x97\x94 then speech seemed to stick in his throat. No! If there were anything in that, he preferred not to hear it. There was a limit! Down below, a pair of lovers passed, very silent, their arms round each other\x92s waists. Barbara turned and walked away towards the house. CHAPTER XI The days when Miltoun was first allowed out of bed were a time of mingled joy and sorrow to her who had nursed him. To see him sitting up, amazed at his own weakness, was happiness, yet to think that he would be no more wholly dependent, no more that sacred thing, a helpless creature, brought her the sadness of a mother whose child no longer needs her. With every hour he would now get farther from her, back into the fastnesses of his own spirit. With every hour she would be less his nurse and comforter, more the woman he loved. And though that thought shone out in the obscure future like a glamorous flower, it brought too much wistful uncertainty to the present. She was very tired, too, now that all excitement was over\x97so tired that she hardly knew what she did or where she moved. But a smile had become so faithful to her eyes that it clung there above the shadows of fatigue, and kept taking her lips prisoner. Between the two bronze busts she had placed a bowl of lilies of the valley; and every free niche in that room of books had a little vase of roses to welcome Miltoun\x92s return. He was lying back in his big leather chair, wrapped in a Turkish gown of Lord Valleys\x92\x97on which Barbara had laid hands, having failed to find anything resembling a dressing-gown amongst her brother\x92s austere clothing. The perfume of lilies had overcome the scent of books, and a bee, dusky, adventurer, filled the room with his pleasant humming. They did not speak, but smiled faintly, looking at one another. In this still moment, before passion had returned to claim its own, their spirits passed through the sleepy air, and became entwined, so that neither could withdraw that soft, slow, encountering glance. In mutual contentment, each to each, close as music to the strings of a violin, their spirits clung\x97so lost, the one in the other, that neither for that brief time seemed to know which was self. In fulfilment of her resolution, Lady Valleys, who had returned to Town by a morning train, started with Barbara for the Temple about three in the after noon, and stopped at the doctor\x92s on the way. The whole thing would be much simpler if Eustace were fit to be moved at once to Valleys House; and with much relief she found that the doctor saw no danger in this course. The recovery had been remarkable\x97touch and go for bad brain fever just avoided! Lord Miltoun\x92s constitution was extremely sound. Yes, he would certainly favour a removal. His rooms were too confined in this weather. Well nursed\x97(decidedly) Oh; yes! Quite! And the doctor\x92s eyes became perhaps a trifle more intense. Not a professional, he understood. It might be as well to have another nurse, if they were making the change. They would have this lady knocking up. Just so! Yes, he would see to that. An ambulance carriage he thought advisable. That could all be arranged for this afternoon\x97at once\x97he himself would look to it. They might take Lord Miltoun off just as he was; the men would know what to do. And when they had him at Valleys House, the moment he showed interest in his food, down to the sea-down to the sea! At this time of year nothing like it! Then with regard to nourishment, he would be inclined already to shove in a leetle stimulant, a thimbleful perhaps four times a day with food\x97not without\x97mixed with an egg, with arrowroot, with custard. A week would see him on his legs, a fortnight at the sea make him as good a man as ever. Overwork\x97burning the candle\x97a leetlemore would have seen a very different state of things! Quite so! quite so! Would come round himself before dinner, and make sure. His patient might feel it just at first! He bowed Lady Valleys out; and when she had gone, sat down at his telephone with a smile flickering on his clean-cut lips. Greatly fortified by this interview, Lady Valleys rejoined her daughter in the ear; but while it slid on amongst the multitudinous traffic, signs of unwonted nervousness began to start out through the placidity of her face. \x93I wish, my dear,\x94 she said suddenly, \x93that someone else had to do this. Suppose Eustace refuses!\x94 \x93He won\x92t,\x94 Barbara answered; \x93she looks so tired, poor dear. Besides\x97\x97\x94 Lady Valleys gazed with curiosity at that young face, which had flushed pink. Yes, this daughter of hers was a woman already, with all a woman\x92s intuitions. She said gravely: \x93It was a rash stroke of yours, Babs; let\x92s hope it won\x92t lead to disaster.\x94 Barbara bit her lips. \x93If you\x92d seen him as I saw him! And, what disaster? Mayn\x92t they love each other, if they want?\x94 Lady Valleys swallowed a grimace. It was so exactly her own point of view. And yet\x97\x97! \x93That\x92s only the beginning,\x94 she said; \x93you forget the sort of boy Eustace is.\x94 \x93Why can\x92t the poor thing be let out of her cage?\x94 cried Barbara. \x93What good does it do to anyone? Mother, if ever, when I am married, I want to get free, I will!\x94 The tone of her voice was so quivering, and unlike the happy voice of Barbara, that Lady Valleys involuntarily caught hold of her hand and squeezed it hard. \x93My dear sweet,\x94 she said, \x93don\x92t let\x92s talk of such gloomy things.\x94 \x93I mean it. Nothing shall stop me.\x94 But Lady Valleys\x92 face had suddenly become rather grim. \x93So we think, child; it\x92s not so simple.\x94 \x93It can\x92t be worse, anyway,\x94 muttered Barbara, \x93than being buried alive as that wretched woman is.\x94 For answer Lady Valleys only murmured: \x93The doctor promised that ambulance carriage at four o\x92clock. What am I going to say?\x94 \x93She\x92ll understand when you look at her. She\x92s that sort.\x94 The door was opened to them by Mrs. Noel herself. It was the first time Lady Valleys had seen her in a house, and there was real curiosity mixed with the assurance which masked her nervousness. A pretty creature, even lovely! But the quite genuine sympathy in her words: \x93I am truly grateful. You must be quite worn out,\x94 did not prevent her adding hastily: \x93The doctor says he must be got home out of these hot rooms. We\x92ll wait here while you tell him.\x94 And then she saw that it was true; this woman was the sort who understood. Left in the dark passage, she peered round at Barbara. The girl was standing against the wall with her head thrown back. Lady Valleys could not see her face; but she felt all of a sudden exceedingly uncomfortable, and whispered: \x93Two murders and a theft, Babs; wasn\x92t it \x91Our Mutual Friend\x92?\x94 \x93Mother!\x94 \x93What?\x94 \x93Her face! When you\x92re going to throw away a flower, it looks at you!\x94 \x93My dear!\x94 murmured Lady Valleys, thoroughly distressed, \x93what things you\x92re saying to-day!\x94 This lurking in a dark passage, this whispering girl\x97it was all queer, unlike an experience in proper life. And then through the reopened door she saw Miltoun, stretched out in a chair, very pale, but still with that look about his eyes and lips, which of all things in the world had a chastening effect on Lady Valleys, making her feel somehow incurably mundane. She said rather timidly: \x93I\x92m so glad you\x92re better, dear. What a time you must have had! It\x92s too bad that I knew nothing till yesterday!\x94 But Miltoun\x92s answer was, as usual, thoroughly disconcerting. \x93Thanks, yes! I have had a perfect time\x97and have now to pay for it, I suppose.\x94 Held back by his smile from bending to kiss him, poor Lady Valleys fidgeted from head to foot. A sudden impulse of sheer womanliness caused a tear to fall on his hand. When Miltoun perceived that moisture, he said: \x93It\x92s all right, mother. I\x92m quite willing to come.\x94 Still wounded by his voice, Lady Valleys hardened instantly. And while preparing for departure she watched the two furtively. They hardly looked at one another, and when they did, their eyes baffled her. The expression was outside her experience, belonging as it were to a different world, with its faintly smiling, almost shining, gravity. Vastly relieved when Miltoun, covered with a fur, had been taken down to the carriage, she lingered to speak to Mrs. Noel. \x93We owe you a great debt. It might have been so much worse. You mustn\x92t be disconsolate. Go to bed and have a good long rest.\x94 And from the door, she murmured again: \x93He will come and thank you, when he\x92s well.\x94 Descending the stone stairs, she thought: \x93\x91Anonyma\x92\x97\x91Anonyma\x92\x97yes, it was quite the name.\x94 And suddenly she saw Barbara come running up again. \x93What is it, Babs?\x94 Barbara answered: \x93Eustace would like some of those lilies.\x94 And, passing Lady Valleys, she went on up to Miltoun\x92s chambers. Mrs. Noel was not in the sitting-room, and going to the bedroom door, the girl looked in. She was standing by the bed, drawing her hand over and over the white surface of the pillow. Stealing noiselessly back, Barbara caught up the bunch of lilies, and fled. CHAPTER XII Miltoun, whose constitution, had the steel-like quality of Lady Casterley\x92s, had a very rapid convalescence. And, having begun to take an interest in his food, he was allowed to travel on the seventh day to Sea House in charge of Barbara. The two spent their time in a little summer-house close to the sea; lying out on the beach under the groynes; and, as Miltoun grew stronger, motoring and walking on the Downs. To Barbara, keeping a close watch, he seemed tranquilly enough drinking in from Nature what was necessary to restore balance after the struggle, and breakdown of the past weeks. Yet she could never get rid of a queer feeling that he was not really there at all; to look at him was like watching an uninhabited house that was waiting for someone to enter. During a whole fortnight he did not make a single allusion to Mrs. Noel, till, on the very last morning, as they were watching the sea, he said with his queer smile: \x93It almost makes one believe her theory, that the old gods are not dead. Do you ever see them, Babs; or are you, like me, obtuse?\x94 Certainly about those lithe invasions of the sea-nymph waves, with ashy, streaming hair, flinging themselves into the arms of the land, there was the old pagan rapture, an inexhaustible delight, a passionate soft acceptance of eternal fate, a wonderful acquiescence in the untiring mystery of life. But Barbara, ever disconcerted by that tone in his voice, and by this quick dive into the waters of unaccustomed thought, failed to find an answer. Miltoun went on: \x93She says, too, we can hear Apollo singing. Shall we try.\x94 But all that came was the sigh of the sea, and of the wind in the tamarisk. \x93No,\x94 muttered Miltoun at last, \x93she alone can hear it.\x94 And Barbara saw, once more on his face that look, neither sad nor impatient, but as of one uninhabited and waiting. She left Sea House next day to rejoin her mother, who, having been to Cowes, and to the Duchess of Gloucester\x92s, was back in Town waiting for Parliament to rise, before going off to Scotland. And that same afternoon the girl made her way to Mrs. Noel\x92s flat. In paying this visit she was moved not so much by compassion, as by uneasiness, and a strange curiosity. Now that Miltoun was well again, she was seriously disturbed in mind. Had she made a mistake in summoning Mrs. Noel to nurse him? When she went into the little drawing-room Audrey was sitting in the deep-cushioned window-seat with a book on her knee; and by the fact that it was open at the index, Barbara judged that she had not been reading too attentively. She showed no signs of agitation at the sight of her visitor, nor any eagerness to hear news of Miltoun. But the girl had not been five minutes in the room before the thought came to her: \x93Why! She has the same look as Eustace!\x94 She, too, was like an empty tenement; without impatience, discontent, or grief\x97waiting! Barbara had scarcely realized this with a curious sense of discomposure, when Courtier was announced. Whether there was in this an absolute coincidence or just that amount of calculation which might follow on his part from receipt of a note written from Sea House\x97saying that Miltoun was well again, that she was coming up and meant to go and thank Mrs. Noel\x97was not clear, nor were her own sensations; and she drew over her face that armoured look which she perhaps knew Courtier could not bear to see. His face, at all events, was very red when he shook hands. He had come, he told Mrs. Noel, to say good-bye. He was definitely off next week. Fighting had broken out; the revolutionaries were greatly outnumbered. Indeed he ought to have been there long before! Barbara had gone over to the window; she turned suddenly, and said: \x93You were preaching peace two months ago!\x94 Courtier bowed. \x93We are not all perfectly consistent, Lady Barbara. These poor devils have a holy cause.\x94 Barbara held out her hand to Mrs. Noel. \x93You only think their cause holy because they happen to be weak. Good-bye, Mrs. Noel; the world is meant for the strong, isn\x92t it!\x94 She intended that to hurt him; and from the tone of his voice, she knew it had. \x93Don\x92t, Lady Barbara; from your mother, yes; not from you!\x94 \x93It\x92s what I believe. Good-bye!\x94 And she went out. She had told him that she did not want him to go\x97not yet; and he was going! But no sooner had she got outside, after that strange outburst, than she bit her lips to keep back an angry, miserable feeling. He had been rude to her, she had been rude to him; that was the way they had said good-bye! Then, as she emerged into the sunlight, she thought: \x93Oh! well; he doesn\x92t care, and I\x92m sure I don\x92t!\x94 She heard a voice behind her. \x93May I get you a cab?\x94 and at once the sore feeling began to die away; but she did not look round, only smiled, and shook her head, and made a little room for him on the pavement. But though they walked, they did not at first talk. There was rising within Barbara a tantalizing devil of desire to know the feelings that really lay behind that deferential gravity, to make him show her how much he really cared. She kept her eyes demurely lowered, but she let the glimmer of a smile flicker about her lips; she knew too that her cheeks were glowing, and for that she was not sorry. Was she not to have any\x97any\x97was he calmly to go away\x97without\x97\x97And she thought: \x93He shall say something! He shall show me, without that horrible irony of his!\x94 She said suddenly: \x93Those two are just waiting\x97something will happen!\x94 \x93It is probable,\x94 was his grave answer. She looked at him then\x97it pleased her to see him quiver as if that glance had gone right into him; and she said softly: \x93And I think they will be quite right.\x94 She knew those were reckless words, nor cared very much what they meant; but she knew the revolt in them would move him. She saw from his face that it had; and after a little pause, said: \x93Happiness is the great thing,\x94 and with soft, wicked slowness: \x93Isn\x92t it, Mr. Courtier?\x94 But all the cheeriness had gone out of his face, which had grown almost pale. He lifted his hand, and let it drop. Then she felt sorry. It was just as if he had asked her to spare him. \x93As to that,\x94 he said: \x93The rough, unfortunately, has to be taken with the smooth. But life\x92s frightfully jolly sometimes.\x94 \x93As now?\x94 He looked at her with firm gravity, and answered \x93As now.\x94 A sense of utter mortification seized on Barbara. He was too strong for her\x97he was quixotic\x97he was hateful! And, determined not to show a sign, to be at least as strong as he, she said calmly: \x93Now I think I\x92ll have that cab!\x94 When she was in the cab, and he was standing with his hat lifted, she looked at him in the way that women can, so that he did not realize that she had looked. CHAPTER XIII When Miltoun came to thank her, Audrey Noel was waiting in the middle of the room, dressed in white, her lips smiling, her dark eyes smiling, still as a flower on a windless day. In that first look passing between them, they forgot everything but happiness. Swallows, on the first day of summer, in their discovery of the bland air, can neither remember that cold winds blow, nor imagine the death of sunlight on their feathers, and, flitting hour after hour over the golden fields, seem no longer birds, but just the breathing of a new season\x97swallows were no more forgetful of misfortune than were those two. His gaze was as still as her very self; her look at him had in at the quietude of all emotion. When they\x92 sat down to talk it was as if they had gone back to those days at Monkland, when he had come to her so often to discuss everything in heaven and earth. And yet, over that tranquil eager drinking\x97in of each other\x92s presence, hovered a sort of awe. It was the mood of morning before the sun has soared. The dew-grey cobwebs enwrapped the flowers of their hearts\x97yet every prisoned flower could be seen. And he and she seemed looking through that web at the colour and the deep-down forms enshrouded so jealously; each feared too much to unveil the other\x92s heart. They were like lovers who, rambling in a shy wood, never dare stay their babbling talk of the trees and birds and lost bluebells, lest in the deep waters of a kiss their star of all that is to come should fall and be drowned. To each hour its familiar\x97and the spirit of that hour was the spirit of the white flowers in the bowl on the window-sill above her head. They spoke of Monk-land, and Miltoun\x92s illness; of his first speech, his impressions of the House of Commons; of music, Barbara, Courtier, the river. He told her of his health, and described his days down by the sea. She, as ever, spoke little of herself, persuaded that it could not interest even him; but she described a visit to the opera; and how she had found a picture in the National Gallery which reminded her of him. To all these trivial things and countless others, the tone of their voices\x97soft, almost murmuring, with a sort of delighted gentleness\x97gave a high, sweet importance, a halo that neither for the world would have dislodged from where it hovered. It was past six when he got up to go, and there had not been a moment to break the calm of that sacred feeling in both their hearts. They parted with another tranquil look, which seemed to say: \x91It is well with us\x97we have drunk of happiness.\x92 And in this same amazing calm Miltoun remained after he had gone away, till about half-past nine in the evening, he started forth, to walk down to the House. It was now that sort of warm, clear night, which in the country has firefly magic, and even over the Town spreads a dark glamour. And for Miltoun, in the delight of his new health and well-being, with every sense alive and clean, to walk through the warmth and beauty of this night was sheer pleasure. He passed by way of St. James\x92s Park, treading down the purple shadows of plane-tree leaves into the pools of lamplight, almost with remorse\x97so beautiful, and as if alive, were they. There were moths abroad, and gnats, born on the water, and scent of new-mown grass drifted up from the lawns. His heart felt light as a swallow he had seen that morning; swooping at a grey feather, carrying it along, letting it flutter away, then diving to seize it again. Such was his elation, this beautiful night! Nearing the House of Commons, he thought he would walk a little longer, and turned westward to the river: On that warm evening the water, without movement at turn of tide, was like the black, snake-smooth hair of Nature streaming out on her couch of Earth, waiting for the caress of a divine hand. Far away on the further; bank throbbed some huge machine, not stilled as yet. A few stars were out in the dark sky, but no moon to invest with pallor the gleam of the lamps. Scarcely anyone passed. Miltoun strolled along the river wall, then crossed, and came back in front of the Mansions where she lived. By the railing he stood still. In the sitting-room of her little flat there was no light, but the casement window was wide open, and the crown of white flowers in the bowl on the window-sill still gleamed out in the darkness like a crescent moon lying on its face. Suddenly, he saw two pale hands rise\x97one on either side of that bowl, lift it, and draw it in. And he quivered, as though they had touched him. Again those two hands came floating up; they were parted now by darkness; the moon of flowers was gone, in its place had been set handfuls of purple or crimson blossoms. And a puff of warm air rising quickly out of the night drifted their scent of cloves into his face, so that he held his breath for fear of calling out her name. Again the hands had vanished\x97through the open window there was nothing to be seen but darkness; and such a rush of longing seized on Miltoun as stole from him all power of movement. He could hear her playing, now. The murmurous current of that melody was like the night itself, sighing, throbbing, languorously soft. It seemed that in this music she was calling him, telling him that she, too, was longing; her heart, too, empty. It died away; and at the window her white figure appeared. From that vision he could not, nor did he try to shrink, but moved out into the lamplight. And he saw her suddenly stretch out her hands to him, and withdraw them to her breast. Then all save the madness of his longing deserted Miltoun. He ran down the little garden, across the hall, up the stairs. The door was open. He passed through. There, in the sitting-room, where the red flowers in the window scented all the air, it was dark, and he could not at first see her, till against the piano he caught the glimmer of her white dress. She was sitting with hands resting on the pale notes. And falling on his knees, he buried his face against her. Then, without looking up, he raised his hands. Her tears fell on them covering her heart, that throbbed as if the passionate night itself were breathing in there, and all but the night and her love had stolen forth. CHAPTER XIV On a spur of the Sussex Downs, inland from Nettle-Cold, there stands a beech-grove. The traveller who enters it out of the heat and brightness, takes off the shoes of his spirit before its, sanctity; and, reaching the centre, across the clean beech-mat, he sits refreshing his brow with air, and silence. For the flowers of sunlight on the ground under those branches are pale and rare, no insects hum, the birds are almost mute. And close to the border trees are the quiet, milk-white sheep, in congregation, escaping from noon heat. Here, above fields and dwellings, above the ceaseless network of men\x92s doings, and the vapour of their talk, the traveller feels solemnity. All seems conveying divinity\x97the great white clouds moving their wings above him, the faint longing murmur of the boughs, and in far distance, the sea.... And for a space his restlessness and fear know the peace of God. So it was with Miltoun when he reached this temple, three days after that passionate night, having walked for hours, alone and full of conflict. During those three days he had been borne forward on the flood tide; and now, tearing himself out of London, where to think was impossible, he had come to the solitude of the Downs to walk, and face his new position. For that position he saw to be very serious. In the flush of full realization, there was for him no question of renunciation. She was his, he hers; that was determined. But what, then, was he to do? There was no chance of her getting free. In her husband\x92s view, it seemed, under no circumstances was marriage dissoluble. Nor, indeed, to Miltoun would divorce have made things easier, believing as he did that he and she were guilty, and that for the guilty there could be no marriage. She, it was true, asked nothing but just to be his in secret; and that was the course he knew most men would take, without further thought. There was no material reason in the world why he should not so act, and maintain unchanged every other current of his life. It would be easy, usual. And, with her faculty for self-effacement, he knew she would not be unhappy. But conscience, in Miltoun, was a terrible and fierce thing. In the delirium of his illness it had become that Great Face which had marched over him. And, though during the weeks of his recuperation, struggle of all kind had ceased, now that he had yielded to his passion, conscience, in a new and dismal shape, had crept up again to sit above his heart: He must and would let this man, her husband, know; but even if that caused no open scandal, could he go on deceiving those who, if they knew of an illicit love, would no longer allow him to be their representative? If it were known that she was his mistress, he could no longer maintain his position in public life\x97was he not therefore in honour bound; of his own accord, to resign it? Night and day he was haunted by the thought: How can I, living in defiance of authority, pretend to authority over my fellows? How can I remain in public life? But if he did not remain in public life, what was he to do? That way of life was in his blood; he had been bred and born into it; had thought of nothing else since he was a boy. There was no other occupation or interest that could hold him for a moment\x97he saw very plainly that he would be cast away on the waters of existence. So the battle raged in his proud and twisted spirit, which took everything so hard\x97his nature imperatively commanding him to keep his work and his power for usefulness; his conscience telling him as urgently that if he sought to wield authority, he must obey it. He entered the beech-grove at the height of this misery, flaming with rebellion against the dilemma which Fate had placed before him; visited by gusts of resentment against a passion, which forced him to pay the price, either of his career, or of his self-respect; gusts, followed by remorse that he could so for one moment regret his love for that tender creature. The face of Lucifer was not more dark, more tortured, than Miltoun\x92s face in the twilight of the grove, above those kingdoms of the world, for which his ambition and his conscience fought. He threw himself down among the trees; and stretching out his arms, by chance touched a beetle trying to crawl over the grassless soil. Some bird had maimed it. He took the little creature up. The beetle truly could no longer work, but it was spared the fate lying before himself. The beetle was not, as he would be, when his power of movement was destroyed, conscious of his own wasted life. The world would not roll away down there. He would still see himself cumbering the ground, when his powers were taken, from him. This thought was torture. Why had he been suffered to meet her, to love her, and to be loved by her? What had made him so certain from the first moment, if she were not meant for him? If he lived to be a hundred, he would never meet another. Why, because of his love, must he bury the will and force of a man? If there were no more coherence in God\x92s scheme than this, let him too be incoherent! Let him hold authority, and live outside authority! Why stifle his powers for the sake of a coherence which did not exist! That would indeed be madness greater than that of a mad world! There was no answer to his thoughts in the stillness of the grove, unless it were the cooing of a dove, or the faint thudding of the sheep issuing again into sunlight. But slowly that stillness stole into Miltoun\x92s spirit. \x93Is it like this in the grave?\x94 he thought. \x93Are the boughs of those trees the dark earth over me? And the sound in them the sound the dead hear when flowers are growing, and the wind passing through them? And is the feel of this earth how it feels to lie looking up for ever at nothing? Is life anything but a nightmare, a dream; and is not this the reality? And why my fury, my insignificant flame, blowing here and there, when there is really no wind, only a shroud of still air, and these flowers of sunlight that have been dropped on me! Why not let my spirit sleep, instead of eating itself away with rage; why not resign myself at once to wait for the substance, of which this is but the shadow!\x94 And he lay scarcely breathing, looking up at the unmoving branches setting with their darkness the pearls of the sky. \x93Is not peace enough?\x94 he thought. \x93Is not love enough? Can I not be reconciled, like a woman? Is not that salvation, and happiness? What is all the rest, but \x91sound and fury, signifying nothing?\x94 And as though afraid to lose his hold of that thought, he got up and hurried from the grove. The whole wide landscape of field and wood, cut by the pale roads, was glimmering under the afternoon sun, Here was no wild, wind-swept land, gleaming red and purple, and guarded by the grey rocks; no home of the winds, and the wild gods. It was all serene and silver-golden. In place of the shrill wailing pipe of the hunting buzzard-hawks half lost up in the wind, invisible larks were letting fall hymns to tranquillity; and even the sea\x97no adventuring spirit sweeping the shore with its wing\x97seemed to lie resting by the side of the land. CHAPTER XV When on the afternoon of that same day Miltoun did not come, all the chilly doubts which his presence alone kept away, crowded thick and fast into the mind of one only too prone to distrust her own happiness. It could not last\x97how could it? His nature and her own were so far apart! Even in that giving of herself which had been such happiness, she had yet doubted; for there was so much in him that was to her mysterious. All that he loved in poetry and nature, had in it something craggy and culminating. The soft and fiery, the subtle and harmonious, seemed to leave him cold. He had no particular love for all those simple natural things, birds, bees, animals, trees, and flowers, that seemed to her precious and divine. Though it was not yet four o\x92clock she was already beginning to droop like a flower that wants water. But she sat down to her piano, resolutely, till tea came; playing on and on with a spirit only half present, the other half of her wandering in the Town, seeking for Miltoun. After tea she tried first to read, then to sew, and once more came back to her piano. The clock struck six; and as if its last stroke had broken the armour of her mind, she felt suddenly sick with anxiety. Why was he so long? But she kept on playing, turning the pages without taking in the notes, haunted by the idea that he might again have fallen ill. Should she telegraph? What good, when she could not tell in the least where he might be? And all the unreasoning terror of not knowing where the loved one is, beset her so that her hands, in sheer numbness, dropped from the keys. Unable to keep still, now, she wandered from window to door, out into the little hall, and back hastily to the window. Over her anxiety brooded a darkness, compounded of vague growing fears. What if it were the end? What if he had chosen this as the most merciful way of leaving her? But surely he would never be so cruel! Close on the heels of this too painful thought came reaction; and she told herself that she was a fool. He was at the House; something quite ordinary was keeping him. It was absurd to be anxious! She would have to get used to this now. To be a drag on him would be dreadful. Sooner than that she would rather\x97yes\x97rather he never came back! And she took up her book, determined to read quietly till he came. But the moment she sat down her fears returned with redoubled force-the cold sickly horrible feeling of uncertainty, of the knowledge that she could do nothing but wait till she was relieved by something over which she had no control. And in the superstition that to stay there in the window where she could see him come, was keeping him from her, she went into her bedroom. From there she could watch the sunset clouds wine-dark over the river. A little talking wind shivered along the houses; the dusk began creeping in. She would not turn on the light, unwilling to admit that it was really getting late, but began to change her dress, lingering desperately over every little detail of her toilette, deriving therefrom a faint, mysterious comfort, trying to make herself feel beautiful. From sheer dread of going back before he came, she let her hair fall, though it was quite smooth and tidy, and began brushing it. Suddenly she thought with horror of her efforts at adornment\x97by specially preparing for him, she must seem presumptuous to Fate. At any little sound she stopped and stood listening\x97save for her hair and eyes, as white from head to foot as a double narcissus flower in the dusk, bending towards some faint tune played to it somewhere oft in the fields. But all those little sounds ceased, one after another\x97they had meant nothing; and each time, her spirit returning\x97within the pale walls of the room, began once more to inhabit her lingering fingers. During that hour in her bedroom she lived through years. It was dark when she left it. CHAPTER XVI When Miltoun at last came it was past nine o\x92clock. Silent, but quivering all over; she clung to him in the hall; and this passion of emotion, without sound to give it substance, affected him profoundly. How terribly sensitive and tender she was! She seemed to have no armour. But though so stirred by her emotion, he was none the less exasperated. She incarnated at that moment the life to which he must now resign himself\x97a life of unending tenderness, consideration, and passivity. For a long time he could not bring himself to speak of his decision. Every look of her eyes, every movement of her body, seemed pleading with him to keep silence. But in Miltoun\x92s character there was an element of rigidity, which never suffered him to diverge from an objective once determined. When he had finished telling her, she only said: \x93Why can\x92t we go on in secret?\x94 And he felt with a sort of horror that he must begin his struggle over again. He got up, and threw open the window. The sky was dark above the river; the wind had risen. That restless murmuration, and the width of the night with its scattered stars, seemed to come rushing at his face. He withdrew from it, and leaning on the sill looked down at her. What flower-like delicacy she had! There flashed across him the memory of a drooping blossom, which, in the Spring, he had seen her throw into the flames; with the words: \x93I can\x92t bear flowers to fade, I always want to burn them.\x94 He could see again those waxen petals yield to the fierce clutch of the little red creeping sparks, and the slender stalk quivering, and glowing, and writhing to blackness like a live thing. And, distraught, he began: \x93I can\x92t live a lie. What right have I to lead, if I can\x92t follow? I\x92m not like our friend Courtier who believes in Liberty. I never have, I never shall. Liberty? What is Liberty? But only those who conform to authority have the right to wield authority. A man is a churl who enforces laws, when he himself has not the strength to observe them. I will not be one of whom it can be said: \x91He can rule others, himself\x97\x97!\x94 \x93No one will know.\x94 Miltoun turned away. \x93I shall know,\x94 he said; but he saw clearly that she did not understand him. Her face had a strange, brooding, shut-away look, as though he had frightened her. And the thought that she could not understand, angered him. He said, stubbornly: \x93No, I can\x92t remain in public life.\x94 \x93But what has it to do with politics? It\x92s such a little thing.\x94 \x93If it had been a little thing to me, should I have left you at Monkland, and spent those five weeks in purgatory before my illness? A little thing!\x94 She exclaimed with sudden fire: \x93Circumstances aye the little thing; it\x92s love that\x92s the great thing.\x94 Miltoun stared at her, for the first time understanding that she had a philosophy as deep and stubborn as his own. But he answered cruelly: \x93Well! the great thing has conquered me!\x94 And then he saw her looking at him, as if, seeing into the recesses of his soul, she had made some ghastly discovery. The look was so mournful, so uncannily intent that he turned away from it. \x93Perhaps it is a little thing,\x94 he muttered; \x93I don\x92t know. I can\x92t see my way. I\x92ve lost my bearings; I must find them again before I can do anything.\x94 But as if she had not heard, or not taken in the sense of his words, she said again: \x93Oh! don\x92t let us alter anything; I won\x92t ever want what you can\x92t give.\x94 And this stubbornness, when he was doing the very thing that would give him to her utterly, seemed to him unreasonable. \x93I\x92ve had it out with myself,\x94 he said. \x93Don\x92t let\x92s talk about it any more.\x94 Again, with a sort of dry anguish, she murmured: \x93No, no! Let us go on as we are!\x94 Feeling that he had borne all he could, Miltoun put his hands on her shoulders, and said: \x93That\x92s enough!\x94 Then, in sudden remorse, he lifted her, and clasped her to him. But she stood inert in his arms, her eyes closed, not returning his kisses. CHAPTER XVII On the last day before Parliament rose, Lord Valleys, with a light heart, mounted his horse for a gallop in the Row. Though she was a blood mare he rode her with a plain snaffle, having the horsemanship of one who has hunted from the age of seven, and been for twenty years a Colonel of Yeomanry. Greeting affably everyone he knew, he maintained a frank demeanour on all subjects, especially of Government policy, secretly enjoying the surmises and prognostications, so pleasantly wide of the mark, and the way questions and hints perished before his sphinx-like candour. He spoke cheerily too of Miltoun, who was \x91all right again,\x92 and \x91burning for the fray\x92 when the House met again in the autumn. And he chaffed Lord Malvezin about his wife. If anything\x97he said\x97could make Bertie take an interest in politics, it would be she. He had two capital gallops, being well known to the police: The day was bright, and he was sorry to turn home. Falling in with Harbinger, he asked him to come back to lunch. There had seemed something different lately, an almost morose look, about young Harbinger; and his wife\x92s disquieting words about Barbara came back to Lord Valleys with a shock. He had seen little of the child lately, and in the general clearing up of this time of year had forgotten all about the matter. Agatha, who was still staying at Valleys House with little Ann, waiting to travel up to Scotland with her mother, was out, and there was no one at lunch except Lady Valleys and Barbara herself. Conversation flagged; for the young people were extremely silent, Lady Valleys was considering the draft of a report which had to be settled before she left, and Lord Valleys himself was rather carefully watching his daughter. The news that Lord Miltoun was in the study came as a surprise, and somewhat of a relief to all. To an exhortation to luring him in to lunch; the servant replied that Lord Miltoun had lunched, and would wait. \x93Does he know there\x92s no one here?\x94 \x93Yes, my lady.\x94 Lady Valleys pushed back her plate, and rose: \x93Oh, well!\x94 she said, \x93I\x92ve finished.\x94 Lord Valleys also got up, and they went out together, leaving Barbara, who had risen, looking doubtfully at the door. Lord Valleys had recently been told of the nursing episode, and had received the news with the dubious air of one hearing something about an eccentric person, which, heard about anyone else, could have had but one significance. If Eustace had been a normal young man his father would have shrugged his shoulder\x92s, and thought: \x93Oh, well! There it is!\x94 As it was, he had literally not known what to think. And now, crossing the saloon which intervened between the dining-room and the study, he said to his wife uneasily: \x93Is it this woman again, Gertrude\x97or what?\x94 Lady Valleys answered with a shrug: \x93Goodness knows, my dear.\x94 Miltoun was standing in the embrasure of a window above the terrace. He looked well, and his greeting was the same as usual. \x93Well, my dear fellow,\x94 said Lord Valleys, \x93you\x92re all right again evidently\x97what\x92s the news?\x94 \x93Only that I\x92ve decided to resign my seat.\x94 Lord Valleys stared. \x93What on earth for?\x94 But Lady Valleys, with the greater quickness of women, divining already something of the reason, had flushed a deep pink. \x93Nonsense, my dear,\x94 she said; \x93it can\x92t possibly be necessary, even if\x97\x97\x94 Recovering herself, she added dryly: \x93Give us some reason.\x94 \x93The reason is simply that I\x92ve joined my life to Mrs. Noel\x92s, and I can\x92t go on as I am, living a lie. If it were known I should obviously have to resign at once.\x94 \x93Good God!\x94 exclaimed Lord Valleys. Lady Valleys made a rapid movement. In the face of what she felt to be a really serious crisis between these two utterly different creatures of the other sex, her husband and her son, she had dropped her mask and become a genuine woman. Unconsciously both men felt this change, and in speaking, turned towards her. \x93I can\x92t argue it,\x94 said Miltoun; \x93I consider myself bound in honour.\x94 \x93And then?\x94 she asked. Lord Valleys, with a note of real feeling, interjected: \x93By Heaven! I did think you put your country above your private affairs.\x94 \x93Geoff!\x94 said Lady Valleys. But Lord Valleys went on: \x93No, Eustace, I\x92m out of touch with your view of things altogether. I don\x92t even begin to understand it.\x94 \x93That is true,\x94 said Miltoun. \x93Listen to me, both of you!\x94 said Lady Valleys: \x93You two are altogether different; and you must not quarrel. I won\x92t have that. Now, Eustace, you are our son, and you have got to be kind and considerate. Sit down, and let\x92s talk it over.\x94 And motioning her husband to a chair, she sat down in the embrasure of a window. Miltoun remained standing. Visited by a sudden dread, Lady Valleys said: \x93Is it\x97you\x92ve not\x97there isn\x92t going to be a scandal?\x94 Miltoun smiled grimly. \x93I shall tell this man, of course, but you may make your minds easy, I imagine; I understand that his view of marriage does not permit of divorce in any case whatever.\x94 Lady Valleys sighed with an utter and undisguised relief. \x93Well, then, my dear boy,\x94 she began, \x93even if you do feel you must tell him, there is surely no reason why it should not otherwise be kept secret.\x94 Lord Valleys interrupted her: \x93I should be glad if you would point out the connection between your honour and the resignation of your seat,\x94 he said stiffly. Miltoun shook his head. \x93If you don\x92t see already, it would be useless.\x94 \x93I do not see. The whole matter is\x97is unfortunate, but to give up your work, so long as there is no absolute necessity, seems to me far-fetched and absurd. How many men are, there into whose lives there has not entered some such relation at one time or another? This idea would disqualify half the nation.\x94 His eyes seemed in that crisis both to consult and to avoid his wife\x92s, as though he were at once asking her endorsement of his point of view, and observing the proprieties. And for a moment in the midst of her anxiety, her sense of humour got the better of Lady Valleys. It was so funny that Geoff should have to give himself away; she could not for the life of her help fixing him with her eyes. \x93My dear,\x94 she murmured, \x93you underestimate three-quarters, at the very least!\x94 But Lord Valleys, confronted with danger, was growing steadier. \x93It passes my comprehension;\x94 he said, \x93why you should want to mix up sex and politics at all.\x94 Miltoun\x92s answer came very slowly, as if the confession were hurting his lips: \x93There is\x97forgive me for using the word\x97such a thing as one\x92s religion. I don\x92t happen to regard life as divided into public and private departments. My vision is gone\x97broken\x97I can see no object before me now in public life\x97no goal\x97no certainty.\x94 Lady Valleys caught his hand: \x93Oh! my dear,\x94 she said, \x93that\x92s too dreadfully puritanical!\x94 But at Miltoun\x92s queer smile, she added hastily: \x93Logical\x97I mean.\x94 \x93Consult your common sense, Eustace, for goodness\x92 sake,\x94 broke in Lord Valleys. \x93Isn\x92t it your simple duty to put your scruples in your pocket, and do the best you can for your country with the powers that have been given you?\x94 \x93I have no common sense.\x94 \x93In that case, of course, it may be just as well that you should leave public life.\x94 Miltoun bowed. \x93Nonsense!\x94 cried Lady Valleys. \x93You don\x92t understand, Geoffrey. I ask you again, Eustace, what will you do afterwards?\x94 \x93I don\x92t know.\x94 \x93You will eat your heart out.\x94 \x93Quite possibly.\x94 \x93If you can\x92t come to a reasonable arrangement with your conscience,\x94 again broke in Lord Valleys, \x93for Heaven\x92s sake give her up, like a man, and cut all these knots.\x94 \x93I beg your pardon, sir!\x94 said Miltoun icily. Lady Valleys laid her hand on his arm. \x93You must allow us a little logic too, my dear. You don\x92t seriously imagine that she would wish you to throw away your life for her? I\x92m not such a bad judge of character as that.\x94 She stopped before the expression on Miltoun\x92s face. \x93You go too fast,\x94 he said; \x93I may become a free spirit yet.\x94 To this saying, which seemed to her cryptic and sinister, Lady Valleys did not know what to answer. \x93If you feel, as you say,\x94 Lord Valleys began once more, \x93that the bottom has been knocked out of things for you by this\x97this affair, don\x92t, for goodness\x92 sake, do anything in a hurry. Wait! Go abroad! Get your balance back! You\x92ll find the thing settle itself in a few months. Don\x92t precipitate matters; you can make your health an excuse to miss the Autumn session.\x94 Lady Valleys chimed in eagerly \x93You really are seeing the thing out of all proportion. What is a love-affair. My dear boy, do you suppose for a moment anyone would think the worse of you, even if they knew? And really not a soul need know.\x94 \x93It has not occurred to me to consider what they would think.\x94 \x93Then,\x94 cried Lady Valleys, nettled, \x93it\x92s simply your own pride.\x94 \x93You have said.\x94 Lord Valleys, who had turned away, spoke in an almost tragic voice \x93I did not think that on a point of honour I should differ from my son.\x94 Catching at the word honour, Lady Valleys cried suddenly: \x93Eustace, promise me, before you do anything, to consult your Uncle Dennis.\x94 Miltoun smiled. \x93This becomes comic,\x94 he said. At that word, which indeed seemed to them quite wanton, Lord and Lady Valleys turned on their son, and the three stood staring, perfectly silent. A little noise from the doorway interrupted them. CHAPTER XVIII Left by her father and mother to the further entertainment of Harbinger, Barbara had said: \x93Let\x92s have coffee in here,\x94 and passed into the withdrawing room. Except for that one evening, when together by the sea wall they stood contemplating the populace, she had not been alone with him since he kissed her under the shelter of the box hedge. And now, after the first moment, she looked at him calmly, though in her breast there was a fluttering, as if an imprisoned bird were struggling ever so feebly against that soft and solid cage. Her last jangled talk with Courtier had left an ache in her heart. Besides, did she not know all that Harbinger could give her? Like a nymph pursued by a faun who held dominion over the groves, she, fugitive, kept looking back. There was nothing in that fair wood of his with which she was not familiar, no thicket she had not travelled, no stream she had not crossed, no kiss she could not return. His was a discovered land, in which, as of right, she would reign. She had nothing to hope from him but power, and solid pleasure. Her eyes said: How am I to know whether I shall not want more than you; feel suffocated in your arms; be surfeited by all that you will bring me? Have I not already got all that? She knew, from his downcast gloomy face, how cruel she seemed, and was sorry. She wanted to be good to him, and said almost shyly: \x93Are you angry with me, Claud?\x94 Harbinger looked up. \x93What makes you so cruel?\x94 \x93I am not cruel.\x94 \x93You are. Where is your heart?\x94 \x93Here!\x94 said Barbara, touching her breast. \x93Ah!\x94 muttered Harbinger; \x93I\x92m not joking.\x94 She said gently:\x92 \x93Is it as bad as that, my dear?\x94 But the softness of her voice seemed to fan the smouldering fires in him. \x93There\x92s something behind all this,\x94 he stammered, \x93you\x92ve no right to make a fool of me!\x94 \x93And what is the something, please?\x94 \x93That\x92s for you to say. But I\x92m not blind. What about this fellow Courtier?\x94 At that moment there was revealed to Barbara a new acquaintance\x97the male proper. No, to live with him would not be quite lacking in adventure! His face had darkened; his eyes were dilated, his whole figure seemed to have grown. She suddenly noticed the hair which covered his clenched fists. All his suavity had left him. He came very close. How long that look between them lasted, and of all there was in it, she had no clear knowledge; thought after thought, wave after wave of feeling, rushed through her. Revolt and attraction, contempt and admiration, queer sensations of disgust and pleasure, all mingled\x97as on a May day one may see the hail fall, and the sun suddenly burn through and steam from the grass. Then he said hoarsely: \x93Oh! Babs, you madden me so!\x94 Smoothing her lips, as if to regain control of them, she answered: \x93Yes, I think I have had enough,\x94 and went out into her father\x92s study. The sight of Lord and Lady Valleys so intently staring at Miltoun restored hex self-possession. It struck her as slightly comic, not knowing that the little scene was the outcome of that word. In truth, the contrast between Miltoun and his parents at this moment was almost ludicrous. Lady Valleys was the first to speak. \x93Better comic than romantic. I suppose Barbara may know, considering her contribution to this matter. Your brother is resigning his seat, my dear; his conscience will not permit him to retain it, under certain circumstances that have arisen.\x94 \x93Oh!\x94 cried Barbara: \x93but surely\x97\x97\x94 \x93The matter has been argued, Babs,\x94 Lord Valleys said shortly; \x93unless you have some better reason to advance than those of ordinary common sense, public spirit, and consideration for one\x92s family, it will hardly be worth your while to reopen the discussion.\x94 Barbara looked up at Miltoun, whose face, all but the eyes, was like a mask. \x93Oh, Eusty!\x94 she said, \x93you\x92re not going to spoil your life like this! Just think how I shall feel.\x94 Miltoun answered stonily: \x93You did what you thought right; as I am doing.\x94 \x93Does she want you to?\x94 \x93No.\x94 \x93There is, I should imagine,\x94 put in Lord Valleys, \x93not a solitary creature in the whole world except your brother himself who would wish for this consummation. But with him such a consideration does not weigh!\x94 \x93Oh!\x94 sighed Barbara; \x93think of Granny!\x94 \x93I prefer not to think of her,\x94 murmured Lady Valleys. \x93She\x92s so wrapped up in you, Eusty. She always has believed in you intensely.\x94 Miltoun sighed. And, encouraged by that sound, Barbara went closer. It was plain enough that, behind his impassivity, a desperate struggle was going on in Miltoun. He spoke at last: \x93If I have not already yielded to one who is naturally more to me than anything, when she begged and entreated, it is because I feel this in a way you don\x92t realize. I apologize for using the word comic just now, I should have said tragic. I\x92ll enlighten Uncle Dennis, if that will comfort you; but this is not exactly a matter for anyone, except myself.\x94 And, without another look or word, he went out. As the door closed, Barbara ran towards it; and, with a motion strangely like the wringing of hands, said: \x93Oh, dear! Oh! dear!\x94 Then, turning away to a bookcase, she began to cry. This ebullition of feeling, surpassing even their own, came as a real shock to Lady and Lord Valleys, ignorant of how strung-up she had been before she entered the room. They had not seen Barbara cry since she was a tiny girl. And in face of her emotion any animus they might have shown her for having thrown Miltoun into Mrs. Noel\x92s arms, now melted away. Lord Valleys, especially moved, went up to his daughter, and stood with her in that dark corner, saying nothing, but gently stroking her hand. Lady Valleys, who herself felt very much inclined to cry, went out of sight into the embrasure of the window. Barbara\x92s sobbing was soon subdued. \x93It\x92s his face,\x94 she said: \x93And why? Why? It\x92s so unnecessary!\x94 Lord Valleys, continually twisting his moustache, muttered: \x93Exactly! He makes things for himself!\x94 \x93Yes,\x94 murmured Lady Valleys from the window, \x93he was always uncomfortable, like that. I remember him as a baby. Bertie never was.\x94 And then the silence was only broken by the little angry sounds of Barbara blowing her nose. \x93I shall go and see mother,\x94 said Lady Valleys, suddenly: \x93The boy\x92s whole life may be ruined if we can\x92t stop this. Are you coming, child?\x94 But Barbara refused. She went to her room, instead. This crisis in Miltoun\x92s life had strangely shaken her. It was as if Fate had suddenly revealed all that any step out of the beaten path might lead to, had brought her sharply up against herself. To wing out into the blue! See what it meant! If Miltoun kept to his resolve, and gave up public life, he was lost! And she herself! The fascination of Courtier\x92s chivalrous manner, of a sort of innate gallantry, suggesting the quest of everlasting danger\x97was it not rather absurd? And\x97was she fascinated? Was it not simply that she liked the feeling of fascinating him? Through the maze of these thoughts, darted the memory of Harbinger\x92s face close to her own, his clenched hands, the swift revelation of his dangerous masculinity. It was all a nightmare of scaring queer sensations, of things that could never be settled. She was stirred for once out of all her normal conquering philosophy. Her thoughts flew back to Miltoun. That which she had seen in their faces, then, had come to pass! And picturing Agatha\x92s horror, when she came to hear of it, Barbara could not help a smile. Poor Eustace! Why did he take things so hardly? If he really carried out his resolve\x97and he never changed his mind\x97it would be tragic! It would mean the end of everything for him! Perhaps now he would get tired of Mrs. Noel. But she was not the sort of woman a man would get tired of. Even Barbara in her inexperience felt that. She would always be too delicately careful never to cloy him, never to exact anything from him, or let him feel that he was bound to her by so much as a hair. Ah! why couldn\x92t they go on as if nothing had happened? Could nobody persuade him? She thought again of Courtier. If he, who knew them both, and was so fond of Mrs. Noel, would talk to Miltoun, about the right to be happy, the right to revolt? Eustace ought to revolt! It was his duty. She sat down to write; then, putting on her hat, took the note and slipped downstairs. CHAPTER XIX The flowers of summer in the great glass house at Ravensham were keeping the last afternoon-watch when Clifton summoned Lady Casterley with the words: \x93Lady Valleys in the white room.\x94 Since the news of Miltoun\x92s illness, and of Mrs. Noel\x92s nursing, the little old lady had possessed her soul in patience; often, it is true, afflicted with poignant misgivings as to this new influence in the life of her favourite, affected too by a sort of jealousy, not to be admitted, even in her prayers, which, though regular enough, were perhaps somewhat formal. Having small liking now for leaving home, even for Catton, her country place, she was still at Ravensham, where Lord Dennis had come up to stay with her as soon as Miltoun had left Sea House. But Lady Casterley was never very dependent on company. She retained unimpaired her intense interest in politics, and still corresponded freely with prominent men. Of late, too, a slight revival of the June war scare had made its mark on her in a certain rejuvenescence, which always accompanied her contemplation of national crises, even when such were a little in the air. At blast of trumpet her spirit still leaped forward, unsheathed its sword, and stood at the salute. At such times, she rose earlier, went to bed later, was far less susceptible to draughts, and refused with asperity any food between meals. She wrote too with her own hand letters which she would otherwise have dictated to her secretary. Unfortunately the scare had died down again almost at once; and the passing of danger always left her rather irritable. Lady Valleys\x92 visit came as a timely consolation. She kissed her daughter critically; for there was that about her manner which she did not like. \x93Yes, of course I am well!\x94 she said. \x93Why didn\x92t you bring Barbara?\x94 \x93She was tired!\x94 \x93H\x92m! Afraid of meeting me, since she committed that piece of folly over Eustace. You must be careful of that child, Gertrude, or she will be doing something silly herself. I don\x92t like the way she keeps Claud Harbinger hanging in the wind.\x94 Her daughter cut her short: \x93There is bad news about Eustace.\x94 Lady Casterley lost the little colour in her cheeks; lost, too, all her superfluity of irritable energy. \x93Tell me, at once!\x94 Having heard, she said nothing; but Lady Valleys noticed with alarm that over her eyes had come suddenly the peculiar filminess of age. \x93Well, what do you advise?\x94 she asked. Herself tired, and troubled, she was conscious of a quite unwonted feeling of discouragement before this silent little figure, in the silent white room. She had never before seen her mother look as if she heard Defeat passing on its dark wings. And moved by sudden tenderness for the little frail body that had borne her so long ago, she murmured almost with surprise: \x93Mother, dear!\x94 \x93Yes,\x94 said Lady Casterley, as if speaking to herself, \x93the boy saves things up; he stores his feelings\x97they burst and sweep him away. First his passion; now his conscience. There are two men in him; but this will be the death of one of them.\x94 And suddenly turning on her daughter, she said: \x93Did you ever hear about him at Oxford, Gertrude? He broke out once, and ate husks with the Gadarenes. You never knew. Of course\x97you never have known anything of him.\x94 Resentment rose in Lady Valleys, that anyone should knew her son better than herself; but she lost it again looking at the little figure, and said, sighing: \x93Well?\x94 Lady Casterley murmured: \x93Go away, child; I must think. You say he\x92s to consult\x92 Dennis? Do you know her address? Ask Barbara when you get back and telephone it to me. And at her daughter\x92s kiss, she added grimly: \x93I shall live to see him in the saddle yet, though I am seventy-eight.\x94 When the sound of her daughter\x92s car had died away, she rang the bell. \x93If Lady Valleys rings up, Clifton, don\x92t take the message, but call me.\x94 And seeing that Clifton did not move she added sharply: \x93Well?\x94 \x93There is no bad news of his young lordship\x92s health, I hope?\x94 \x93No.\x94 \x93Forgive me, my lady, but I have had it on my mind for some time to ask you something.\x94 And the old man raised his hand with a peculiar dignity, seeming to say: You will excuse me that for the moment I am a human being speaking to a human being. \x93The matter of his attachment,\x94 he went on, \x93is known to me; it has given me acute anxiety, knowing his lordship as I do, and having heard him say something singular when he was here in July. I should be grateful if you would assure\x97me that there is to be no hitch in his career, my lady.\x94 The expression on Lady Casterley\x92s face was strangely compounded of surprise, kindliness, defence, and impatience as with a child. \x93Not if I can prevent it, Clifton,\x94 she said shortly; \x93in fact, you need not concern yourself.\x94 Clifton bowed. \x93Excuse me mentioning it, my lady;\x94 a quiver ran over his face between its long white whiskers, \x93but his young lordship\x92s career is more to me than my own.\x94 When he had left her, Lady Casterley sat down in a little low chair\x97long she sat there by the empty hearth, till the daylight, was all gone. CHAPTER XX Not far from the dark-haloed indeterminate limbo where dwelt that bugbear of Charles Courtier, the great Half-Truth Authority, he himself had a couple of rooms at fifteen shillings a week. Their chief attraction was that the great Half-Truth Liberty had recommended them. They tied him to nothing, and were ever at his disposal when he was in London; for his landlady, though not bound by agreement so to do, let them in such a way, that she could turn anyone else out at a week\x92s notice. She was a gentle soul, married to a socialistic plumber twenty years her senior. The worthy man had given her two little boys, and the three of them kept her in such permanent order that to be in the presence of Courtier was the greatest pleasure she knew. When he disappeared on one of his nomadic missions, explorations, or adventures, she enclosed the whole of his belongings in two tin trunks and placed them in a cupboard which smelled a little of mice. When he reappeared the trunks were reopened, and a powerful scent of dried rose-leaves would escape. For, recognizing the mortality of things human, she procured every summer from her sister, the wife of a market gardener, a consignment of this commodity, which she passionately sewed up in bags, and continued to deposit year by year, in Courtier\x92s trunks. This, and the way she made his toast\x97very crisp\x97and aired his linen\x97very dry, were practically the only things she could do for a man naturally inclined to independence, and accustomed from his manner of life to fend for himself. At first signs of his departure she would go into some closet or other, away from the plumber and the two marks of his affection, and cry quietly; but never in Courtier\x92s presence did she dream of manifesting grief\x97as soon weep in the presence of death or birth, or any other fundamental tragedy or joy. In face of the realities of life she had known from her youth up the value of the simple verb \x91sto\x97stare-to stand fast.\x92 And to her Courtier was a reality, the chief reality of life, the focus of her aspiration, the morning and the evening star. The request, then five days after his farewell visit to Mrs. Noel\x97for the elephant-hide trunk which accompanied his rovings, produced her habitual period of seclusion, followed by her habitual appearance in his sitting-room bearing a note, and some bags of dried rose\x97leaves on a tray. She found him in his shirt sleeves, packing. \x93Well, Mrs. Benton; off again!\x94 Mrs. Benton, plaiting her hands, for she had not yet lost something of the look and manner of a little girl, answered in her flat, but serene voice: \x93Yes, sir; and I hope you\x92re not going anywhere very dangerous this time. I always think you go to such dangerous places.\x94 \x93To Persia, Mrs. Benton, where the carpets come from.\x94 \x93Oh! yes, sir. Your washing\x92s just come home.\x94 Her, apparently cast-down, eyes stored up a wealth of little details; the way his hair grew, the set of his back, the colour of his braces. But suddenly she said in a surprising voice: \x93You haven\x92t a photograph you could spare, sir, to leave behind? Mr. Benton was only saying to me yesterday, we\x92ve nothing to remember him by, in case he shouldn\x92t come back.\x94 \x93Here\x92s an old one.\x94 Mrs. Benton took the photograph. \x93Oh!\x94 she said; \x93you can see who it is.\x94 And holding it perhaps too tightly, for her fingers trembled, she added: \x93A note, please, sir; and the messenger boy is waiting for\x97an answer.\x94 While he read the note she noticed with concern how packing had brought the blood into his head.... When, in response to that note, Courtier entered the well-known confectioner\x92s called Gustard\x92s, it was still not quite tea-time, and there seemed to him at first no one in the room save three middle-aged women packing sweets; then in the corner he saw Barbara. The blood was no longer in his head; he was pale, walking down that mahogany-coloured room impregnated with the scent of wedding-cake. Barbara, too, was pale. So close to her that he could count her every eyelash, and inhale the scent of her hair and clothes to listen to her story of Miltoun, so hesitatingly, so wistfully told, seemed very like being kept waiting with the rope already round his neck, to hear about another person\x92s toothache. He felt this to have been unnecessary on the part of Fate! And there came to him perversely the memory of that ride over the sun-warmed heather, when he had paraphrased the old Sicilian song: \x91Here will I sit and sing.\x92 He was a long way from singing now; nor was there love in his arms. There was instead a cup of tea; and in his nostrils the scent of cake, with now and then a whiff of orange-flower water. \x93I see,\x94 he said, when she had finished telling him: \x93\x91Liberty\x92s a glorious feast!\x92 You want me to go to your brother, and quote Bums? You know, of course, that he regards me as dangerous.\x94 \x93Yes; but he respects and likes you.\x94 \x93And I respect and like him,\x94 answered Courtier. One of the middle-aged females passed, carrying a large white card-board box; and the creaking of her stays broke the hush. \x93You have been very sweet to me,\x94 said Barbara, suddenly. Courtier\x92s heart stirred, as if it were turning over within him; and gazing into his teacup, he answered\x97 \x93All men are decent to the evening star. I will go at once and find your brother. When shall I bring you news?\x94 \x93To-morrow at five I\x92ll be at home.\x94 And repeating, \x93To-morrow at five,\x94 he rose. Looking back from the door, he saw her face puzzled, rather reproachful, and went out gloomily. The scent of cake, and orange-flower water, the creaking of the female\x92s stays, the colour of mahogany, still clung to his nose and ears, and eyes; but within him it was all dull baffled rage. Why had he not made the most of this unexpected chance; why had he not made desperate love to her? A conscientious ass! And yet\x97the whole thing was absurd! She was so young! God knew he would be glad to be out of it. If he stayed he was afraid that he would play the fool. But the memory of her words: \x93You have been very sweet to me!\x94 would not leave him; nor the memory of her face, so puzzled, and reproachful. Yes, if he stayed he would play the fool! He would be asking her to marry a man double her age, of no position but that which he had carved for himself, and without a rap. And he would be asking her in such a way that she might possibly have some little difficulty in refusing. He would be letting himself go. And she was only twenty\x97for all her woman-of-the-world air, a child! No! He would be useful to her, if possible, this once, and then clear out! CHAPTER XXI When Miltoun left Valleys House he walked in the direction of Westminster. During the five days that he had been back in London he had not yet entered the House of Commons. After the seclusion of his illness, he still felt a yearning, almost painful, towards the movement and stir of the town. Everything he heard and saw made an intensely vivid impression. The lions in Trafalgar Square, the great buildings of Whitehall, filled him with a sort of exultation. He was like a man, who, after a long sea voyage, first catches sight of land, and stands straining his eyes, hardly breathing, taking in one by one the lost features of that face. He walked on to Westminster Bridge, and going to an embrasure in the very centre, looked back towards the towers. It was said that the love of those towers passed into the blood. It was said that he who had sat beneath them could never again be quite the same. Miltoun knew that it was true\x97desperately true, of himself. In person he had sat there but three weeks, but in soul he seemed to have been sitting there hundreds of years. And now he would sit there no more! An almost frantic desire to free himself from this coil rose up within him. To be held a prisoner by that most secret of all his instincts, the instinct for authority! To be unable to wield authority because to wield authority was to insult authority. God! It was hard! He turned his back on the towers; and sought distraction in the faces of the passers-by. Each of these, he knew, had his struggle to keep self-respect! Or was it that they were unconscious of struggle or of self-respect, and just let things drift? They looked like that, most of them! And all his inherent contempt for the average or common welled up as he watched them. Yes, they looked like that! Ironically, the sight of those from whom he had desired the comfort of compromise, served instead to stimulate that part of him which refused to let him compromise. They looked soft, soggy, without pride or will, as though they knew that life was too much for them, and had shamefully accepted the fact. They so obviously needed to be told what they might do, and which way they should, go; they would accept orders as they accepted their work, or pleasures: And the thought that he was now debarred from the right to give them orders, rankled in him furiously. They, in their turn, glanced casually at his tall figure leaning against the parapet, not knowing how their fate was trembling in the balance. His thin, sallow face, and hungry eyes gave one or two of them perhaps a feeling of interest or discomfort; but to most he was assuredly no more than any other man or woman in the hurly-burly. That dark figure of conscious power struggling in the fetters of its own belief in power, was a piece of sculpture they had neither time nor wish to understand, having no taste for tragedy\x97for witnessing the human spirit driven to the wall. It was five o\x92clock before Miltoun left the Bridge, and passed, like an exile, before the gates of Church and State, on his way to his uncle\x92s Club. He stopped to telegraph to Audrey the time he would be coming to-morrow afternoon; and on leaving the Post-Office, noticed in the window of the adjoining shop some reproductions of old Italian masterpieces, amongst them one of Botticelli\x92s \x91Birth of Venus.\x92 He had never seen that picture; and, remembering that she had told him it was her favourite, he stopped to look at it. Averagely well versed in such matters, as became one of his caste, Miltoun had not the power of letting a work of art insidiously steal the private self from his soul, and replace it with the self of all the world; and he examined this far-famed presentment of the heathen goddess with aloofness, even irritation. The drawing of the body seemed to him crude, the whole picture a little flat and Early; he did not like the figure of the Flora. The golden serenity, and tenderness, of which she had spoken, left him cold. Then he found himself looking at the face, and slowly, but with uncanny certainty, began to feel that he was looking at the face of Audrey herself. The hair was golden and different, the eyes grey and different, the mouth a little fuller; yet\x97it was her face; the same oval shape, the same far-apart, arched brows, the same strangely tender, elusive spirit. And, as though offended, he turned and walked on. In the window of that little shop was the effigy of her for whom he had bartered away his life\x97the incarnation of passive and entwining love, that gentle creature, who had given herself to him so utterly, for whom love, and the flowers, and trees, and birds, music, the sky, and the quick-flowing streams, were all-sufficing; and who, like the goddess in the picture, seemed wondering at her own existence. He had a sudden glimpse of understanding, strange indeed in one who had so little power of seeing into others\x92 hearts: Ought she ever to have been born into a world like this? But the flash of insight yielded quickly to that sickening consciousness of his own position, which never left him now. Whatever else he did, he must get rid of that malaise! But what could he do in that coming life? Write books? What sort of books could he write? Only such as expressed his views of citizenship, his political and social beliefs. As well remain sitting and speaking beneath those towers! He could never join the happy band of artists, those soft and indeterminate spirits, for whom barriers had no meaning, content-to understand, interpret, and create. What should he be doing in that galley? The thought was inconceivable. A career at the Bar\x97yes, he might take that up; but to what end? To become a judge! As well continue to sit beneath those towers! Too late for diplomacy. Too late for the Army; besides, he had not the faintest taste for military glory. Bury himself in the country like Uncle Dennis, and administer one of his father\x92s estates? It would be death. Go amongst the poor? For a moment he thought he had found a new vocation. But in what capacity\x97to order their lives, when he himself could not order his own; or, as a mere conduit pipe for money, when he believed that charity was rotting the nation to its core? At the head of every avenue stood an angel or devil with drawn sword. And then there came to him another thought. Since he was being cast forth from Church and State, could he not play the fallen spirit like a man\x97be Lucifer, and destroy! And instinctively he at once saw himself returning to those towers, and beneath them crossing the floor; joining the revolutionaries, the Radicals, the freethinkers, scourging his present Party, the party of authority and institutions. The idea struck him as supremely comic, and he laughed out loud in the street.... The Club which Lord Dennis frequented was in St. James\x92s untouched by the tides of the waters of fashion\x97steadily swinging to its moorings in a quiet backwater, and Miltoun found his uncle in the library. He was reading a volume of Burton\x92s travels, and drinking tea. \x93Nobody comes here,\x94 he said, \x93so, in spite of that word on the door, we shall talk. Waiter, bring some more tea, please.\x94 Impatiently, but with a sort of pity, Miltoun watched Lord Dennis\x92s urbane movements, wherein old age was, pathetically, trying to make each little thing seem important, if only to the doer. Nothing his great-uncle could say would outweigh the warning of his picturesque old figure! To be a bystander; to see it all go past you; to let your sword rust in its sheath, as this poor old fellow had done! The notion of explaining what he had come about was particularly hateful to Miltoun; but since he had given his word, he nerved himself with secret anger, and began: \x93I promised my mother to ask you a question, Uncle Dennis. You know of my attachment, I believe?\x94 Lord Dennis nodded. \x93Well, I have joined my life to this lady\x92s. There will be no scandal, but I consider it my duty to resign my seat, and leave public life alone. Is that right or wrong according to, your view?\x94 Lord Dennis looked at his nephew in silence. A faint flush coloured his brown cheeks. He had the appearance of one travelling in mind over the past. \x93Wrong, I think,\x94 he said, at last. \x93Why, if I may ask?\x94 \x93I have not the pleasure of knowing this lady, and am therefore somewhat in the dark; but it appears to me that your decision is not fair to her.\x94 \x93That is beyond me,\x94 said Miltoun. Lord Dennis answered firmly: \x93You have asked me a frank question, expecting a frank answer, I suppose?\x94 Miltoun nodded. \x93Then, my dear, don\x92t blame me if what I say is unpalatable.\x94 \x93I shall not.\x94 \x93Good! You say you are going to give up public life for the sake of your conscience. I should have no criticism to make if it stopped there.\x94 He paused, and for quite a minute remained silent, evidently searching for words to express some intricate thread of thought. \x93But it won\x92t, Eustace; the public man in you is far stronger than the other. You want leadership more than you want love. Your sacrifice will kill your affection; what you imagine is your loss and hurt, will prove to be this lady\x92s in the end.\x94 Miltoun smiled. Lord Dennis continued very dryly and with a touch of malice: \x93You are not listening to me; but I can see very well that the process has begun already underneath. There\x92s a curious streak of the Jesuit in you, Eustace. What you don\x92t want to see, you won\x92t look at.\x94 \x93You advise me, then, to compromise?\x94 \x93On the contrary, I point out that you will be compromising if you try to keep both your conscience and your love. You will be seeking to have, it both ways.\x94 \x93That is interesting.\x94 \x93And you will find yourself having it neither,\x94 said Lord Dennis sharply. Miltoun rose. \x93In other words, you, like the others, recommend me to desert this lady who loves me, and whom I love. And yet, Uncle, they say that in your own case\x97\x97\x94 But Lord Dennis had risen, too, having lost all the appanage and manner of old age. \x93Of my own case,\x94 he said bluntly, \x93we won\x92t talk. I don\x92t advise you to desert anyone; you quite mistake me. I advise you to know yourself. And I tell you my opinion of you\x97you were cut out by Nature for a statesman, not a lover! There\x92s something dried-up in you, Eustace; I\x92m not sure there isn\x92t something dried-up in all our caste. We\x92ve had to do with forms and ceremonies too long. We\x92re not good at taking the lyrical point of view.\x94 \x93Unfortunately,\x94 said Miltoun, \x93I cannot, to fit in with a theory of yours, commit a baseness.\x94 Lord Dennis began pacing up and down. He was keeping his lips closed very tight. \x93A man who gives advice,\x94 he said at last, \x93is always something of a fool. For all that, you have mistaken mine. I am not so presumptuous as to attempt to enter the inner chamber of your spirit. I have merely told you that, in my opinion, it would be more honest to yourself, and fairer to this lady, to compound with your conscience, and keep both your love and your public life, than to pretend that you were capable of sacrificing what I know is the stronger element in you for the sake of the weaker. You remember the saying, Democritus I think: \x91each man\x92s nature or character is his fate or God\x92. I recommend it to you.\x94 For a full minute Miltoun stood without replying, then said: \x93I am sorry to have troubled you, Uncle Dennis. A middle policy is no use to me. Good-bye!\x94 And without shaking hands, he went out. CHAPTER XXII In the hall someone rose from a sofa, and came towards him. It was Courtier. \x93Run you to earth at last,\x94 he said; \x93I wish you\x92d come and dine with me. I\x92m leaving England to-morrow night, and there are things I want to say.\x94 There passed through Miltoun\x92s mind the rapid thought: \x91Does he know?\x92 He assented, however, and they went out together. \x93It\x92s difficult to find a quiet place,\x94 said Courtier; \x93but this might do.\x94 The place chosen was a little hostel, frequented by racing men, and famed for the excellence of its steaks. And as they sat down opposite each other in the almost empty room, Miltoun thought: Yes, he does know! Can I stand any more of this? He waited almost savagely for the attack he felt was coming. \x93So you are going to give up your seat?\x94 said Courtier. Miltoun looked at him for some seconds, before replying. \x93From what town-crier did you hear that?\x94 But there was that in Courtier\x92s face which checked his anger; its friendliness was transparent. \x93I am about her only friend,\x94 Courtier proceeded earnestly; \x93and this is my last chance\x97to say nothing of my feeling towards you, which, believe me, is very cordial.\x94 \x93Go on, then,\x94 Miltoun muttered. \x93Forgive me for putting it bluntly. Have you considered what her position was before she met you?\x94 Miltoun felt the blood rushing to his face, but he sat still, clenching his nails into the palms of his hands. \x93Yes, yes,\x94 said Courtier, \x93but that attitude of mind\x97you used to have it yourself\x97which decrees either living death, or spiritual adultery to women, makes my blood boil. You can\x92t deny that those were the alternatives, and I say you had the right fundamentally to protest against them, not only in words but deeds. You did protest, I know; but this present decision of yours is a climb down, as much as to say that your protest was wrong.\x94 Miltoun rose from his seat. \x93I cannot discuss this,\x94 he said; \x93I cannot.\x94 \x93For her sake, you must. If you give up your public work, you\x92ll spoil her life a second time.\x94 Miltoun again sat down. At the word \x91must\x92 a steely feeling had come to his aid; his eyes began to resemble the old Cardinal\x92s. \x93Your nature and mine, Courtier,\x94 he said, \x93are too far apart; we shall never understand each other.\x94 \x93Never mind that,\x94 answered Courtier. \x93Admitting those two alternatives to be horrible, which you never would have done unless the facts had been brought home to you personally\x97\x94 \x93That,\x94 said Miltoun icily, \x93I deny your right to say.\x94 \x93Anyway, you do admit them\x97if you believe you had not the right to rescue her, on what principle do you base that belief?\x94 Miltoun placed his elbow on the table, and leaning his chin on his hand, regarded the champion of lost causes without speaking. There was such a turmoil going on within him that with difficulty he could force his lips to obey him. \x93By what right do you ask me that?\x94 he said at last. He saw Courtier\x92s face grow scarlet, and his fingers twisting furiously at those flame-like moustaches; but his answer was as steadily ironical as usual. \x93Well, I can hardly sit still, my last evening in England, without lifting a finger, while you immolate a woman to whom I feel like a brother. I\x92ll tell you what your principle is: Authority, unjust or just, desirable or undesirable, must be implicitly obeyed. To break a law, no matter on what provocation, or for whose sake, is to break the commandment.\x94 \x93Don\x92t hesitate\x97say, of God.\x94 \x93Of an infallible fixed Power. Is that a true definition of your principle?\x94 \x93Yes,\x94 said Miltoun, between his teeth, \x93I think so.\x94 \x93Exceptions prove the rule.\x94 \x93Hard cases make bad law.\x94 Courtier smiled: \x93I knew you were coming out with that. I deny that they do with this law, which is altogether behind the times. You had the right to rescue this woman.\x94 \x93No, Courtier, if we must fight, let us fight on the naked facts. I have not rescued anyone. I have merely stolen sooner than starve. That is why I cannot go on pretending to be a pattern. If it were known, I could not retain my seat an hour; I can\x92t take advantage of an accidental secrecy. Could you?\x94 Courtier was silent; and with his eyes Miltoun pressed on him, as though he would despatch him with that glance. \x93I could,\x94 said Courtier at last. \x93When this law, by enforcing spiritual adultery on those who have come to hate their mates, destroys the sanctity of the married state\x97the very sanctity it professes to uphold, you must expect to have it broken by reasoning men and women without their feeling shame, or losing self-respect.\x94 In Miltoun there was rising that vast and subtle passion for dialectic combat, which was of his very fibre. He had almost lost the feeling that this was his own future being discussed. He saw before him in this sanguine man, whose voice and eyes had such a white-hot sound and look, the incarnation of all that he temperamentally opposed. \x93That,\x94 he said, \x93is devil\x92s advocacy. I admit no individual as judge in his own case.\x94 \x93Ah! Now we\x92re coming to it. By the way, shall we get out of this heat?\x94 They were no sooner in the cooler street, than the voice of Courtier began again: \x93Distrust of human nature, fear\x97it\x92s the whole basis of action for men of your stamp. You deny the right of the individual to judge, because you\x92ve no faith in the essential goodness of men; at heart you believe them bad. You give them no freedom, you allow them no consent, because you believe that their decisions would move downwards, and not upwards. Well, it\x92s the whole difference between the aristocratic and the democratic view of life. As you once told me, you hate and fear the crowd.\x94 Miltoun eyed that steady sanguine face askance: \x93Yes,\x94 he said, \x93I do believe that men are raised in spite of themselves.\x94 \x93You\x92re honest. By whom?\x94 Again Miltoun felt rising within him a sort of fury. Once for all he would slay this red-haired rebel; he answered with almost savage irony: \x93Strangely enough, by that Being to mention whom you object\x97working through the medium of the best.\x94 \x93High-Priest! Look at that girl slinking along there, with her eye on us; suppose, instead of withdrawing your garment, you went over and talked to her, got her to tell you what she really felt and thought, you\x92d find things that would astonish you. At bottom, mankind is splendid. And they\x92re raised, sir, by the aspiration that\x92s in all of them. Haven\x92t you ever noticed that public sentiment is always in advance of the Law?\x94 \x93And you,\x94 said Miltoun, \x93are the man who is never on the side of the majority?\x94 The champion of lost causes uttered a short laugh. \x93Not so logical as all that,\x94 he answered; \x93the wind still blows; and Life\x92s not a set of rules hung up in an office. Let\x92s see, where are we?\x94 They had been brought to a stand-still by a group on the pavement in front of the Queen\x92s Hall: \x93Shall we go in, and hear some music, and cool our tongues?\x94 Miltoun nodded, and they went in. The great lighted hall, filled with the faint bluefish vapour from hundreds of little rolls of tobacco leaf, was crowded from floor to ceiling. Taking his stand among the straw-hatted throng, Miltoun heard that steady ironical voice behind him: \x93Profanum vulgus! Come to listen to the finest piece of music ever written! Folk whom you wouldn\x92t trust a yard to know what was good for them! Deplorable sight, isn\x92t it?\x94 He made no answer. The first slow notes of the seventh Symphony of Beethoven had begun to steal forth across the bank of flowers; and, save for the steady rising of that bluefish vapour, as it were incense burnt to the god of melody, the crowd had become deathly still, as though one mind, one spirit, possessed each pale face inclined towards that music rising and falling like the sighing of the winds, that welcome from death the freed spirits of the beautiful. When the last notes had died away, he turned and walked out. \x93Well,\x94 said the voice behind him, \x93hasn\x92t that shown you how things swell and grow; how splendid the world is?\x94 Miltoun smiled. \x93It has shown me how beautiful the world can be made by a great man.\x94 And suddenly, as if the music had loosened some band within him, he began to pour forth words: \x93Look at the crowd in this street, Courtier, which of all crowds in the whole world can best afford to be left to itself; secure from pestilence, earthquake, cyclone, drought, from extremes of heat and cold, in the heart of the greatest and safest city in the world; and yet-see the figure of that policeman! Running through all the good behaviour of this crowd, however safe and free it looks, there is, there always must be, a central force holding it together. Where does that central force come from? From the crowd itself, you say. I answer: No. Look back at the origin of human States. From the beginnings of things, the best man has been the unconscious medium of authority, of the controlling principle, of the divine force; he felt that power within him\x97physical, at first\x97he used it to take the lead, he has held the lead ever since, he must always hold it. All your processes of election, your so-called democratic apparatus, are only a blind to the inquiring, a sop to the hungry, a salve to the pride of the rebellious. They are merely surface machinery; they cannot prevent the best man from coming to the top; for the best man stands nearest to the Deity, and is the first to receive the waves that come from Him. I\x92m not speaking of heredity. The best man is not necessarily born in my class, and I, at all events, do not believe he is any more frequent there than in other classes.\x94 He stopped as suddenly as he had begun. \x93You needn\x92t be afraid,\x94 answered Courtier, \x93that I take you for an average specimen. You\x92re at one end, and I at the other, and we probably both miss the golden mark. But the world is not ruled by power, and the fear which power produces, as you think, it\x92s ruled by love. Society is held together by the natural decency in man, by fellow-feeling. The democratic principle, which you despise, at root means nothing at all but that. Man left to himself is on the upward lay. If it weren\x92t so, do you imagine for a moment your \x91boys in blue\x92 could keep order? A man knows unconsciously what he can and what he can\x92t do, without losing his self-respect. He sucks that knowledge in with every breath. Laws and authority are not the be-all and end-all, they are conveniences, machinery, conduit pipes, main roads. They\x92re not of the structure of the building\x97they\x92re only scaffolding.\x94 Miltoun lunged out with the retort \x93Without which no building could be built.\x94 Courtier parried. \x93That\x92s rather different, my friend, from identifying them with the building. They are things to be taken down as fast as ever they can be cleared away, to make room for an edifice that begins on earth, not in the sky. All the scaffolding of law is merely there to save time, to prevent the temple, as it mounts, from losing its way, and straying out of form.\x94 \x93No,\x94 said Miltoun, \x93no! The scaffolding, as you call it, is the material projection of the architect\x92s conception, without which the temple does not and cannot rise; and the architect is God, working through the minds and spirits most akin to Himself.\x94 \x93We are now at the bed-rock,\x94 cried Courtier, \x93your God is outside this world. Mine within it.\x94 \x93And never the twain shall meet!\x94 In the silence that followed Miltoun saw that they were in Leicester Square, all quiet as yet before the theatres had disgorged; quiet yet waiting, with the lights, like yellow stars low-driven from the dark heavens, clinging to the white shapes of music-halls and cafes, and a sort of flying glamour blanching the still foliage of the plane trees. \x93A \x91whitely wanton\x92\x97this Square!\x94 said Courtier: \x93Alive as a face; no end to its queer beauty! And, by Jove, if you went deep enough, you\x92d find goodness even here.\x94 \x93And you\x92d ignore the vice,\x94 Miltoun answered. He felt weary all of a sudden, anxious to get to his rooms, unwilling to continue this battle of words, that brought him no nearer to relief. It was with strange lassitude that he heard the voice still speaking: \x93We must make a night of it, since to-morrow we die.... You would curb licence from without\x97I from within. When I get up and when I go to bed, when I draw a breath, see a face, or a flower, or a tree\x97if I didn\x92t feel that I was looking on the Deity, I believe I should quit this palace of varieties, from sheer boredom. You, I understand, can\x92t look on your God, unless you withdraw into some high place. Isn\x92t it a bit lonely there?\x94 \x93There are worse things than loneliness.\x94 And they walked on, in silence; till suddenly Miltoun broke out: \x93You talk of tyranny! What tyranny could equal this tyranny of your freedom? What tyranny in the world like that of this \x91free\x92 vulgar, narrow street, with its hundred journals teeming like ants\x92 nests, to produce-what? In the entrails of that creature of your freedom, Courtier, there is room neither for exaltation, discipline, nor sacrifice; there is room only for commerce, and licence.\x94 There was no answer for a moment; and from those tall houses, whose lighted windows he had apostrophized, Miltoun turned away towards the river. \x93No,\x94 said the voice beside him, \x93for all its faults, the wind blows in that street, and there\x92s a chance for everything. By God, I would rather see a few stars struggle out in a black sky than any of your perfect artificial lighting.\x94 And suddenly it seemed to Miltoun that he could never free himself from the echoes of that voice\x97it was not worth while to try. \x93We are repeating ourselves,\x94 he said, dryly. The river\x92s black water was making stilly, slow recessional under a half-moon. Beneath the cloak of night the chaos on the far bank, the forms of cranes, high buildings, jetties, the bodies of the sleeping barges, a\x97million queer dark shapes, were invested with emotion. All was religious out there, all beautiful, all strange. And over this great quiet friend of man, lamps\x97those humble flowers of night, were throwing down the faint continual glamour of fallen petals; and a sweet-scented wind stole along from the West, very slow as yet, bringing in advance the tremor and perfume of the innumerable trees and fields which the river had loved as she came by. A murmur that was no true sound, but like the whisper of a heart to a heart, accompanied this voyage of the dark water. Then a small blunt skiff\x97manned by two rowers came by under the wall, with the thudding and the creak of oars. \x93So \x91To-morrow we die\x92?\x94 said Miltoun: \x93You mean, I suppose, that \x91public life\x92 is the breath of my nostrils, and I must die, because I give it up?\x94 Courtier nodded. \x93Am I right in thinking that it was my young sister who sent you on this crusade?\x94 Courtier did not answer. \x93And so,\x94 Miltoun went on, looking him through and through; \x93to-morrow is to be your last day, too? Well, you\x92re right to go. She is not an ugly duckling, who can live out of the social pond; she\x92ll always want her native element. And now, we\x92ll say goodbye! Whatever happens to us both, I shall remember this evening.\x94 Smiling, he put out his hand \x91Moriturus te saluto.\x92 CHAPTER XXIII Courtier sat in Hyde Park waiting for five o\x92clock. The day had recovered somewhat from a grey morning, as though the glow of that long hot summer were too burnt-in on the air to yield to the first assault. The sun, piercing the crisped clouds, those breast feathers of heavenly doves, darted its beams at the mellowed leaves, and showered to the ground their delicate shadow stains. The first, too early, scent from leaves about to fall, penetrated to the heart. And sorrowful sweet birds were tuning their little autumn pipes, blowing into them fragments of Spring odes to Liberty. Courtier thought of Miltoun and his mistress. By what a strange fate had those two been thrown together; to what end was their love coming? The seeds of grief were already sown, what flowers of darkness, or of tumult would come up? He saw her again as a little, grave, considering child, with her soft eyes, set wide apart under the dark arched brows, and the little tuck at the corner of her mouth that used to come when he teased her. And to that gentle creature who would sooner die than force anyone to anything, had been given this queer lover; this aristocrat by birth and nature, with the dried fervent soul, whose every fibre had been bred and trained in and to the service of Authority; this rejecter of the Unity of Life; this worshipper of an old God! A God that stood, whip in hand, driving men to obedience. A God that even now Courtier could conjure up staring at him from the walls of his nursery. The God his own father had believed in. A God of the Old Testament, knowing neither sympathy nor understanding. Strange that He should be alive still; that there should still be thousands who worshipped Him. Yet, not so very strange, if, as they said, man made God in his own image! Here indeed was a curious mating of what the philosophers would call the will to Love, and the will to Power! A soldier and his girl came and sat down on a bench close by. They looked askance at this trim and upright figure with the fighting face; then, some subtle thing informing them that he was not of the disturbing breed called officer, they ceased to regard him, abandoning themselves to dumb and inexpressive felicity. Arm in arm, touching each other, they seemed to Courtier very jolly, having that look of living entirely in the moment, which always especially appealed to one whose blood ran too fast to allow him to speculate much upon the future or brood much over the past. A leaf from the bough above him, loosened by the sun\x92s kisses, dropped, and fell yellow at his feet. The leaves were turning very soon? It was characteristic of this man, who could be so hot over the lost causes of others, that, sitting there within half an hour of the final loss of his own cause, he could be so calm, so almost apathetic. This apathy was partly due to the hopelessness, which Nature had long perceived, of trying to make him feel oppressed, but also to the habits of a man incurably accustomed to carrying his fortunes in his hand, and that hand open. It did not seem real to him that he was actually going to suffer a defeat, to have to confess that he had hankered after this girl all these past weeks, and that to-morrow all would be wasted, and she as dead to him as if he had never seen her. No, it was not exactly resignation, it was rather sheer lack of commercial instinct. If only this had been the lost cause of another person. How gallantly he would have rushed to the assault, and taken her by storm! If only he himself could have been that other person, how easily, how passionately could he not have pleaded, letting forth from him all those words which had knocked at his teeth ever since he knew her, and which would have seemed so ridiculous and so unworthy, spoken on his own behalf. Yes, for that other person he could have cut her out from under the guns of the enemy; he could have taken her, that fairest prize. And in queer, cheery-looking apathy\x97not far removed perhaps from despair\x97he sat, watching the leaves turn over and fall, and now and then cutting with his stick at the air, where autumn was already riding. And, if in imagination he saw himself carrying her away into the wilderness, and with his devotion making her happiness to grow, it was so far a flight, that a smile crept about his lips, and once or twice he snapped his jaws. The soldier and his girl rose, passing in front of him down the Row. He watched their scarlet and blue figures, moving slowly towards the sun, and another couple close to the rails, crossing those receding forms. Very straight and tall, there was something exhilarating in the way this new couple swung along, holding their heads up, turning towards each other, to exchange words or smiles. Even at that distance they could be seen to be of high fashion; in their gait was the almost insolent poise of those who are above doubts and cares, certain of the world and of themselves. The girl\x92s dress was tawny brown, her hair and hat too of the same hue, and the pursuing sunlight endowed her with a hazy splendour. Then, Courtier saw who they were\x97that couple! Except for an unconscious grinding of his teeth, he made no sound or movement, so that they went by without seeing him. Her voice, though not the words, came to him distinctly. He saw her hand slip up under Harbinger\x92s arm and swiftly down again. A smile, of whose existence he was unaware, settled on his lips. He got up, shook himself, as a dog shakes off a beating, and walked away, with his mouth set very firm. CHAPTER XXIV Left alone among the little mahogany tables of Gustard\x92s, where the scent of cake and of orange-flower water made happy all the air, Barbara had sat for some minutes, her eyes cast down\x97as a child from whom a toy has been taken contemplates the ground, not knowing precisely what she is feeling. Then, paying one of the middle-aged females, she went out into the Square. There a German band was playing Delibes\x92 Coppelia; and the murdered tune came haunting her, a very ghost of incongruity. She went straight back to Valleys House. In the room where three hours ago she had been left alone after lunch with Harbinger, her sister was seated in the window, looking decidedly upset. In fact, Agatha had just spent an awkward hour. Chancing, with little Ann, into that confectioner\x92s where she could best obtain a particularly gummy sweet which she believed wholesome for her children, she had been engaged in purchasing a pound, when looking down, she perceived Ann standing stock-still, with her sudden little nose pointed down the shop, and her mouth opening; glancing in the direction of those frank, enquiring eyes, Agatha saw to her amazement her sister, and a man whom she recognized as Courtier. With a readiness which did her complete credit, she placed a sweet in Ann\x92s mouth, and saying to the middle-aged female: \x93Then you\x92ll send those, please. Come, Ann!\x94 went out. Shocks never coming singly, she had no sooner reached home, than from her father she learned of the development of Miltoun\x92s love affair. When Barbara returned, she was sitting, unfeignedly disturbed and grieved; unable to decide whether or no she ought to divulge what she herself had seen, but withal buoyed-up by that peculiar indignation of the essentially domestic woman, whose ideals have been outraged. Judging at once from the expression of her face that she must have heard the news of Miltoun, Barbara said: \x93Well, my dear Angel, any lecture for me?\x94 Agatha answered coldly: \x93I think you were quite mad to take Mrs. Noel to him.\x94 \x93The whole duty of woman,\x94 murmured Barbara, \x93includes a little madness.\x94 Agatha looked at her in silence. \x93I can\x92t make you out,\x94 she said at last; \x93you\x92re not a fool!\x94 \x93Only a knave.\x94 \x93You may think it right to joke over the ruin of Miltoun\x92s life,\x94 murmured Agatha; \x93I don\x92t.\x94 Barbara\x92s eyes grew bright; and in a hard voice she answered: \x93The world is not your nursery, Angel!\x94 Agatha closed her lips very tightly, as who should imply: \x93Then it ought to be!\x94 But she only answered: \x93I don\x92t think you know that I saw you just now in Gustard\x92s.\x94 Barbara eyed her for a moment in amazement, and began to laugh. \x93I see,\x94 she said; \x93monstrous depravity\x97poor old Gustard\x92s!\x94 And still laughing that dangerous laugh, she turned on her heel and went out. At dinner and afterwards that evening she was very silent, having on her face the same look that she wore out hunting, especially when in difficulties of any kind, or if advised to \x91take a pull.\x92 When she got away to her own room she had a longing to relieve herself by some kind of action that would hurt someone, if only herself. To go to bed and toss about in a fever\x97for she knew herself in these thwarted moods\x97was of no use! For a moment she thought of going out. That would be fun, and hurt them, too; but it was difficult. She did not want to be seen, and have the humiliation of an open row. Then there came into her head the memory of the roof of the tower, where she had once been as a little girl. She would be in the air there, she would be able to breathe, to get rid of this feverishness. With the unhappy pleasure of a spoiled child taking its revenge, she took care to leave her bedroom door open, so that her maid would wonder where she was, and perhaps be anxious, and make them anxious. Slipping through the moonlit picture gallery on to the landing, outside her father\x92s sanctum, whence rose the stone staircase leading to the roof, she began to mount. She was breathless when, after that unending flight of stairs she emerged on to the roof at the extreme northern end of the big house, where, below her, was a sheer drop of a hundred feet. At first she stood, a little giddy, grasping the rail that ran round that garden of lead, still absorbed in her brooding, rebellious thoughts. Gradually she lost consciousness of everything save the scene before her. High above all neighbouring houses, she was almost appalled by the majesty of what she saw. This night-clothed city, so remote and dark, so white-gleaming and alive, on whose purple hills and valleys grew such myriad golden flowers of light, from whose heart came this deep incessant murmur\x97could it possibly be the same city through which she had been walking that very day! From its sleeping body the supreme wistful spirit had emerged in dark loveliness, and was low-flying down there, tempting her. Barbara turned round, to take in all that amazing prospect, from the black glades of Hyde Park, in front, to the powdery white ghost of a church tower, away to the East. How marvellous was this city of night! And as, in presence of that wide darkness of the sea before dawn, her spirit had felt little and timid within her\x97so it felt now, in face of this great, brooding, beautiful creature, whom man had made. She singled out the shapes of the Piccadilly hotels, and beyond them the palaces and towers of Westminster and Whitehall; and everywhere the inextricable loveliness of dim blue forms and sinuous pallid lines of light, under an indigo-dark sky. Near at hand, she could see plainly the still-lighted windows, the motorcars gliding by far down, even the tiny shapes of people walking; and the thought that each of them meant someone like herself, seemed strange. Drinking of this wonder-cup, she began to experience a queer intoxication, and lost the sense of being little; rather she had the feeling of power, as in her dream at Monkland. She too, as well as this great thing below her, seemed to have shed her body, to be emancipated from every barrier-floating deliciously identified with air. She seemed to be one with the enfranchised spirit of the city, drowned in perception of its beauty. Then all that feeling went, and left her frowning, shivering, though the wind from the West was warm. Her whole adventure of coming up here seemed bizarre, ridiculous. Very stealthily she crept down, and had reached once more the door into \x91the picture gallery, when she heard her mother\x92s voice say in amazement: \x93That you, Babs?\x94 And turning, saw her coming from the doorway of the sanctum. Of a sudden very cool, with all her faculties about her, Barbara smiled, and stood looking at Lady Valleys, who said with hesitation: \x93Come in here, dear, a minute, will you?\x94 In that room resorted to for comfort, Lord Valleys was standing with his back to the hearth, and an expression on his face that wavered between vexation and decision. The doubt in Agatha\x92s mind whether she should tell or no, had been terribly resolved by little Ann, who in a pause of conversation had announced: \x93We saw Auntie Babs and Mr. Courtier in Gustard\x92s, but we didn\x92t speak to them.\x94 Upset by the events of the afternoon, Lady Valleys had not shown her usual \x91savoir faire\x92. She had told her husband. A meeting of this sort in a shop celebrated for little save its wedding cakes was in a sense of no importance; but, being disturbed already by the news of Miltoun, it seemed to them both nothing less than sinister, as though the heavens were in league for the demolition of their house. To Lord Valleys it was peculiarly mortifying, because of his real admiration for his daughter, and because he had paid so little attention to his wife\x92s warning of some weeks back. In consultation, however, they had only succeeded in deciding that Lady Valleys should talk with her. Though without much spiritual insight, they had, each of them, a certain cool judgment; and were fully alive to the danger of thwarting Barbara. This had not prevented Lord Valleys from expressing himself strongly on the \x91confounded unscrupulousness of that fellow,\x92 and secretly forming his own plan for dealing with this matter. Lady Valleys, more deeply conversant with her daughter\x92s nature, and by reason of femininity more lenient towards the other sex, had not tried to excuse Courtier, but had thought privately: \x91Babs is rather a flirt.\x92 For she could not altogether help remembering herself at the same age. Summoned thus unexpectedly, Barbara, her lips very firmly pressed together, took her stand, coolly enough, by her father\x92s writing-table. Seeing her suddenly appear, Lord Valleys instinctively relaxed his frown; his experience of men and things, his thousands of diplomatic hours, served to give him an air of coolness and detachment which he was very far from feeling. In truth he would rather have faced a hostile mob than his favourite daughter in such circumstances. His tanned face with its crisp grey moustache, his whole head indeed, took on, unconsciously, a more than ordinarily soldier-like appearance. His eyelids drooped a little, his brows rose slightly. She was wearing a blue wrap over her evening frock, and he seized instinctively on that indifferent trifle to begin this talk. \x93Ah! Babs, have you been out?\x94 Alive to her very finger-nails, with every nerve tingling, but showing no sign, Barbara answered: \x93No; on the roof of the tower.\x94 It gave her a real malicious pleasure to feel the perplexity beneath her father\x92s dignified exterior. And detecting that covert mockery, Lord Valleys said dryly: \x93Star-gazing?\x94 Then, with that sudden resolution peculiar to him, as though he were bored with having to delay and temporize, he added: \x93Do you know, I doubt whether it\x92s wise to make appointments in confectioner\x92s shops when Ann is in London.\x94 The dangerous little gleam in Barbara\x92s eyes escaped his vision but not that of Lady Valleys, who said at once: \x93No doubt you had the best of reasons, my dear.\x94 Barbara curled her lip. Had it not been for the scene they had been through that day with Miltoun, and for their very real anxiety, both would have seen, then, that while their daughter was in this mood, least said was soonest mended. But their nerves were not quite within control; and with more than a touch of impatience Lord Valleys ejaculated: \x93It doesn\x92t appear to you, I suppose, to require any explanation?\x94 Barbara answered: \x93No.\x94 \x93Ah!\x94 said Lord Valleys: \x93I see. An explanation can be had no doubt from the gentleman whose sense of proportion was such as to cause him to suggest such a thing.\x94 \x93He did not suggest it. I did.\x94 Lord Valleys\x92 eyebrows rose still higher. \x93Indeed!\x94 he said. \x93Geoffrey!\x94 murmured Lady Valleys, \x93I thought I was to talk to Babs.\x94 \x93It would no doubt be wiser.\x94 In Barbara, thus for the first time in her life seriously reprimanded, there was at work the most peculiar sensation she had ever felt, as if something were scraping her very skin\x97a sick, and at the same time devilish, feeling. At that moment she could have struck her father dead. But she showed nothing, having lowered the lids of her eyes. \x93Anything else?\x94 she said. Lord Valleys\x92 jaw had become suddenly more prominent. \x93As a sequel to your share in Miltoun\x92s business, it is peculiarly entrancing.\x94 \x93My dear,\x94 broke in Lady Valleys very suddenly, \x93Babs will tell me. It\x92s nothing, of course.\x94 Barbara\x92s calm voice said again: \x93Anything else?\x94 The repetition of this phrase in that maddening, cool voice almost broke down her father\x92s sorely tried control. \x93Nothing from you,\x94 he said with deadly coldness. \x93I shall have the honour of telling this gentleman what I think of him.\x94 At those words Barbara drew herself together, and turned her eyes from one face to the other. Under that gaze, which for all its cool hardness, was so furiously alive, neither Lord nor Lady Valleys could keep quite still. It was as if she had stripped from them the well-bred mask of those whose spirits, by long unquestioning acceptance of themselves, have become inelastic, inexpansive, commoner than they knew. In fact a rather awful moment! Then Barbara said: \x93If there\x92s nothing else, I\x92m going to bed. Goodnight!\x94 And as calmly as she had come in, she went out. When she had regained her room, she locked the door, threw off her cloak, and looked at herself in the glass. With pleasure she saw how firmly her teeth were clenched, how her breast was heaving, and how her eyes seemed to be stabbing herself. And all the time she thought: \x93Very well! My dears! Very well!\x94 CHAPTER XXV In that mood of rebellious mortification she fell asleep. And, curiously enough, dreamed not of him whom she had in mind been so furiously defending, but of Harbinger. She fancied herself in prison, lying in a cell fashioned like the drawing-room at Sea house; and in the next cell, into which she could somehow look, Harbinger was digging at the wall with his nails. She could distinctly see the hair on the back of his hands, and hear him breathing. The hole he was making grew larger and larger. Her heart began to beat furiously; she awoke. She rose with a new and malicious resolution to show no sign of rebellion, to go through the day as if nothing had happened, to deceive them all, and then\x97! Exactly what \x91and then\x92 meant, she did not explain even to herself. In accordance with this plan of action she presented an untroubled front at breakfast, went out riding with little Ann, and shopping with her mother afterwards. Owing to this news of Miltoun the journey to Scotland had been postponed. She parried with cool ingenuity each attempt made by Lady Valleys to draw her into conversation on the subject of that meeting at Gustard\x92s, nor would she talk of her brother; in every other way she was her usual self. In the afternoon she even volunteered to accompany her mother to old Lady Harbinger\x92s in the neighbourhood of Prince\x92s Gate. She knew that Harbinger would be there, and with the thought of meeting that other at \x91five o\x92clock,\x92 had a cynical pleasure in thus encountering him. It was so complete a blind to them all! Then, feeling that she was accomplishing a masterstroke; she even told him, in her mother\x92s hearing, that she would walk home, and he might come if he cared. He did care. But when once she had begun to swing along in the mellow afternoon, under the mellow trees, where the air was sweetened by the South-West wind, all that mutinous, reckless mood of hers vanished, she felt suddenly happy and kind, glad to be walking with him. To-day too he was cheerful, as if determined not to spoil her gaiety; and she was grateful for this. Once or twice she even put her hand up and touched his sleeve, calling his attention to birds or trees, friendly, and glad, after all those hours of bitter feelings, to be giving happiness. When they parted at the door of Valleys House, she looked back at him with a queer, half-rueful smile. For, now the hour had come! In a little unfrequented ante-room, all white panels and polish, she sat down to wait. The entrance drive was visible from here; and she meant to encounter Courtier casually in the hall. She was excited, and a little scornful of her own excitement. She had expected him to be punctual, but it was already past five; and soon she began to feel uneasy, almost ridiculous, sitting in this room where no one ever came. Going to the window, she looked out. A sudden voice behind her, said: \x93Auntie Babs!\x94. Turning, she saw little Ann regarding her with those wide, frank, hazel eyes. A shiver of nerves passed through Barbara. \x93Is this your room? It\x92s a nice room, isn\x92t it?\x94 She answered: \x93Quite a nice room, Ann.\x94 \x93Yes. I\x92ve never been in here before. There\x92s somebody just come, so I must go now.\x94 Barbara involuntarily put her hands up to her cheeks, and quickly passed with her niece into the hall. At the very door the footman William handed her a note. She looked at the superscription. It was from Courtier. She went back into the room. Through its half-closed door the figure of little Ann could be seen, with her legs rather wide apart, and her hands clasped on her low-down belt, pointing up at William her sudden little nose. Barbara shut the door abruptly, broke the seal, and read: \x93DEAR LADY BARBARA, \x93I am sorry to say my interview with your brother was fruitless. \x93I happened to be sitting in the Park just now, and I want to wish you every happiness before I go. It has been the greatest pleasure to know you. I shall never have a thought of you that will not be my pride; nor a memory that will not help me to believe that life is good. If I am tempted to feel that things are dark, I shall remember that you are breathing this same mortal air. And to beauty and joy\x92 I shall take off my hat with the greater reverence, that once I was permitted to walk and talk, with you. And so, good-bye, and God bless you. \x93Your faithful servant, \x93CHARLES COURTIER.\x94 Her cheeks burned, quick sighs escaped her lips; she read the letter again, but before getting to the end could not see the words for mist. If in that letter there had been a word of complaint or even of regret! She could not let him go like this, without good-bye, without any explanation at all. He should not think of her as a cold, stony flirt, who had been merely stealing a few weeks\x92 amusement out of him. She would explain to him at all events that it had not been that. She would make him understand that it was not what he thought\x97that something in her wanted\x97wanted\x97\x97! Her mind was all confused. \x93What was it?\x94 she thought: \x93What did I do?\x94 And sore with anger at herself, she screwed the letter up in her glove, and ran out. She walked swiftly down to Piccadilly, and crossed into the Green Park. There she passed Lord Malvezin and a friend strolling up towards Hyde Park Corner, and gave them a very faint bow. The composure of those two precise and well-groomed figures sickened her just then. She wanted to run, to fly to this meeting that should remove from him the odious feelings he must have, that she, Barbara Caradoc, was a vulgar enchantress, a common traitress and coquette! And his letter\x97without a syllable of reproach! Her cheeks burned so, that she could not help trying to hide them from people who passed. As she drew nearer to his rooms she walked slower, forcing herself to think what she should do, what she should let him do! But she continued resolutely forward. She would not shrink now\x97whatever came of it! Her heart fluttered, seemed to stop beating, fluttered again. She set her teeth; a sort of desperate hilarity rose in her. It was an adventure! Then she was gripped by the feeling that had come to her on the roof. The whole thing was bizarre, ridiculous! She stopped, and drew the letter from her glove. It might be ridiculous, but it was due from her; and closing her lips very tight, she walked on. In thought she was already standing close to him, her eyes shut, waiting, with her heart beating wildly, to know what she would feel when his lips had spoken, perhaps touched her face or hand. And she had a sort of mirage vision of herself, with eyelashes resting on her cheeks, lips a little parted, arms helpless at her sides. Yet, incomprehensibly, his figure was invisible. She discovered then that she was standing before his door. She rang the bell calmly, but instead of dropping her hand, pressed the little bare patch of palm left open by the glove to her face, to see whether it was indeed her own cheek flaming so. The door had been opened by some unseen agency, disclosing a passage and flight of stairs covered by a red carpet, at the foot of which lay an old, tangled, brown-white dog full of fleas and sorrow. Unreasoning terror seized on Barbara; her body remained rigid, but her spirit began flying back across the Green Park, to the very hall of Valleys House. Then she saw coming towards her a youngish woman in a blue apron, with mild, reddened eyes. \x93Is this where Mr. Courtier lives?\x94 \x93Yes, miss.\x94 The teeth of the young woman were few in number and rather black; and Barbara could only stand there saying nothing, as if her body had been deserted between the sunlight and this dim red passage, which led to-what? The woman spoke again: \x93I\x92m sorry if you was wanting him, miss, he\x92s just gone away.\x94 Barbara felt a movement in her heart, like the twang and quiver of an elastic band, suddenly relaxed. She bent to stroke the head of the old dog, who was smelling her shoes. The woman said: \x93And, of course, I can\x92t give you his address, because he\x92s gone to foreign parts.\x94 With a murmur, of whose sense she knew nothing, Barbara hurried out into the sunshine. Was she glad? Was she sorry? At the corner of the street she turned and looked back; the two heads, of the woman and the dog, were there still, poked out through the doorway. A horrible inclination to laugh seized her, followed by as horrible a desire to cry. CHAPTER XXVI By the river the West wind, whose murmuring had visited Courtier and Miltoun the night before, was bringing up the first sky of autumn. Slow-creeping and fleecy grey, the clouds seemed trying to overpower a sun that shone but fitfully even thus early in the day. While Audrey Noel was dressing sunbeams danced desperately on the white wall, like little lost souls with no to-morrow, or gnats that wheel and wheel in brief joy, leaving no footmarks on the air. Through the chinks of a side window covered by a dark blind some smoky filaments of light were tethered to the back of her mirror. Compounded of trembling grey spirals, so thick to the eye that her hand felt astonishment when it failed to grasp them, and so jealous as ghosts of the space they occupied, they brought a moment\x92s distraction to a heart not happy. For how could she be happy, her lover away from her now thirty hours, without having overcome with his last kisses the feeling of disaster which had settled on her when he told her of his resolve. Her eyes had seen deeper than his; her instinct had received a message from Fate. To be the dragger-down, the destroyer of his usefulness; to be not the helpmate, but the clog; not the inspiring sky, but the cloud! And because of a scruple which she could not understand! She had no anger with that unintelligible scruple; but her fatalism, and her sympathy had followed it out into his future. Things being so, it could not be long before he felt that her love was maiming him; even if he went on desiring her, it would be only with his body. And if, for this scruple, he were capable of giving up his public life, he would be capable of living on with her after his love was dead! This thought she could not bear. It stung to the very marrow of her nerves. And yet surely Life could not be so cruel as to have given her such happiness meaning to take it from her! Surely her love was not to be only one summer\x92s day; his love but an embrace, and then\x97for ever nothing! This morning, fortified by despair, she admitted her own beauty. He would, he must want her more than that other life, at the very thought of which her face darkened. That other life so hard, and far from her! So loveless, formal, and yet\x97to him so real, so desperately, accursedly real! If he must indeed give up his career, then surely the life they could live together would make up to him\x97a life among simple and sweet things, all over the world, with music and pictures, and the flowers and all Nature, and friends who sought them for themselves, and in being kind to everyone, and helping the poor and the unfortunate, and loving each other! But he did not want that sort of life! What was the good of pretending that he did? It was right and natural he should want, to use his powers! To lead and serve! She would not have him otherwise: With these thoughts hovering and darting within her, she went on twisting and coiling her dark hair, and burying her heart beneath its lace defences. She noted too, with her usual care, two fading blossoms in the bowl of flowers on her dressing-table, and, removing them, emptied out the water and refilled the bowl. Before she left her bedroom the sunbeams had already ceased to dance, the grey filaments of light were gone. Autumn sky had come into its own. Passing the mirror in the hall which was always rough with her, she had not courage to glance at it. Then suddenly a woman\x92s belief in the power of her charm came to her aid; she felt almost happy\x97surely he must love her better than his conscience! But that confidence was very tremulous, ready to yield to the first rebuff. Even the friendly fresh\x97cheeked maid seemed that morning to be regarding her with compassion; and all the innate sense, not of \x91good form,\x92 but of form, which made her shrink from anything that should disturb or hurt another, or make anyone think she was to be pitied, rose up at once within her; she became more than ever careful to show nothing even to herself. So she passed the morning, mechanically doing the little usual things. An overpowering longing was with her all the time, to get him away with her from England, and see whether the thousand beauties she could show him would not fire him with love of the things she loved. As a girl she had spent nearly three years abroad. And Eustace had never been to Italy, nor to her beloved mountain valleys! Then, the remembrance of his rooms at the Temple broke in on that vision, and shattered it. No Titian\x92s feast of gentian, tawny brown, and alpen-rose could intoxicate the lover of those books, those papers, that great map. And the scent of leather came to her now as poignantly as if she were once more flitting about noiselessly on her business of nursing. Then there rushed through her again the warm wonderful sense that had been with her all those precious days\x97of love that knew secretly of its approaching triumph and fulfilment; the delicious sense of giving every minute of her time, every thought, and movement; and all the sweet unconscious waiting for the divine, irrevocable moment when at last she would give herself and be his. The remembrance too of how tired, how sacredly tired she had been, and of how she had smiled all the time with her inner joy of being tired for him. The sound of the bell startled her. His telegram had said, the afternoon! She determined to show nothing of the trouble darkening the whole world for her, and drew a deep breath, waiting for his kiss. It was not Miltoun, but Lady Casterley. The shock sent the blood buzzing into her temples. Then she noticed that the little figure before her was also trembling; drawing up a chair, she said: \x93Won\x92t you sit down?\x94 The tone of that old voice, thanking her, brought back sharply the memory of her garden, at Monkland, bathed in the sweetness and shimmer of summer, and of Barbara standing at her gate towering above this little figure, which now sat there so silent, with very white face. Those carved features, those keen, yet veiled eyes, had too often haunted her thoughts; they were like a bad dream come true. \x93My grandson is not here, is he?\x94 Audrey shook her head. \x93We have heard of his decision. I will not beat about the bush with you. It is a disaster for me a calamity. I have known and loved him since he was born, and I have been foolish enough to dream, dreams about him. I wondered perhaps whether you knew how much we counted on him. You must forgive an old woman\x92s coming here like this. At my age there are few things that matter, but they matter very much.\x94 And Audrey thought: \x93And at my age there is but one thing that matters, and that matters worse than death.\x94 But she did not speak. To whom, to what should she speak? To this hard old woman, who personified the world? Of what use, words? \x93I can say to you,\x94 went on the voice of the little figure, that seemed so to fill the room with its grey presence, \x93what I could not bring myself to say to others; for you are not hard-hearted.\x94 A quiver passed up from the heart so praised to the still lips. No, she was not hard-hearted! She could even feel for this old woman from whose voice anxiety had stolen its despotism. \x93Eustace cannot live without his career. His career is himself, he must be doing, and leading, and spending his powers. What he has given you is not his true self. I don\x92t want to hurt you, but the truth is the truth, and we must all bow before it. I may be hard, but I can respect sorrow.\x94 To respect sorrow! Yes, this grey visitor could do that, as the wind passing over the sea respects its surface, as the air respects the surface of a rose, but to penetrate to the heart, to understand her sorrow, that old age could not do for youth! As well try to track out the secret of the twistings in the flight of those swallows out there above the river, or to follow to its source the faint scent of the lilies in that bowl! How should she know what was passing in here\x97this little old woman whose blood was cold? And Audrey had the sensation of watching someone pelt her with the rind and husks of what her own spirit had long devoured. She had a longing to get up, and take the hand, the chill, spidery hand of age, and thrust it into her breast, and say: \x93Feel that, and cease!\x94 But, withal, she never lost her queer dull compassion for the owner of that white carved face. It was not her visitor\x92s fault that she had come! Again Lady Casterley was speaking. \x93It is early days. If you do not end it now, at once, it will only come harder on you presently. You know how determined he is. He will not change his mind. If you cut him off from his work in life, it will but recoil on you. I can only expect your hatred, for talking like this, but believe me, it\x92s for your good, as well as his, in the long run.\x94 A tumultuous heart-beating of ironical rage seized on the listener to that speech. Her good! The good of a corse that the breath is just abandoning; the good of a flower beneath a heel; the good of an old dog whose master leaves it for the last time! Slowly a weight like lead stopped all that fluttering of her heart. If she did not end it at once! The words had now been spoken that for so many hours, she knew, had lain unspoken within her own breast. Yes, if she did not, she could never know a moment\x92s peace, feeling that she was forcing him to a death in life, desecrating her own love and pride! And the spur had been given by another! The thought that someone\x97this hard old woman of the hard world\x97should have shaped in words the hauntings of her love and pride through all those ages since Miltoun spoke to her of his resolve; that someone else should have had to tell her what her heart had so long known it must do\x97this stabbed her like a knife! This, at all events, she could not bear! She stood up, and said: \x93Please leave me now! I have a great many things to do, before I go.\x94 With a sort of pleasure she saw a look of bewilderment cover that old face; with a sort of pleasure she marked the trembling of the hands raising their owner from the chair; and heard the stammering in the voice: \x93You are going? Before-before he comes? You-you won\x92t be seeing him again?\x94 With a sort of pleasure she marked the hesitation, which did not know whether to thank, or bless, or just say nothing and creep away. With a sort of pleasure she watched the flush mount in the faded cheeks, the faded lips pressed together. Then, at the scarcely whispered words: \x93Thank you, my dear!\x94 she turned, unable to bear further sight or sound. She went to the window and pressed her forehead against the glass, trying to think of nothing. She heard the sound of wheels-Lady Casterley had gone. And then, of all the awful feelings man or woman can know, she experienced the worst: She could not cry! At this most bitter and deserted moment of her life, she felt strangely calm, foreseeing clearly, exactly; what she must do, and where go. Quickly it must be done, or it would never be done! Quickly! And without fuss! She put some things together, sent the maid out for a cab, and sat down to write. She must do and say nothing that could excite him, and bring back his illness. Let it all be sober, reasonable! It would be easy to let him know where she was going, to write a letter that would bring him flying after her. But to write the calm, reasonable words that would keep him waiting and thinking, till he never again came to her, broke her heart. When she had finished and sealed the letter, she sat motionless with a numb feeling in hands and brain, trying to realize what she had next to do. To go, and that was all! Her trunks had been taken down already. She chose the little hat that he liked her best in, and over it fastened her thickest veil. Then, putting on her travelling coat and gloves, she looked in the long mirror, and seeing that there was nothing more to keep her, lifted her dressing bag, and went down. Over on the embankment a child was crying; and the passionate screaming sound, broken by the gulping of tears, made her cover her lips, as though she had heard her own escaped soul wailing out there. She leaned out of the cab to say to the maid: \x93Go and comfort that crying, Ella.\x94 Only when she was alone in the train, secure from all eyes, did she give way to desperate weeping. The white smoke rolling past the windows was not more evanescent than her joy had been. For she had no illusions\x97it was over! From first to last\x97not quite a year! But even at this moment, not for all the world would she have been without her love, gone to its grave, like a dead child that evermore would be touching her breast with its wistful fingers. CHAPTER XXVII Barbara returning from her visit to Courtier\x92s deserted rooms, was met at Valleys House with the message: Would she please go at once to Lady Casterley? When, in obedience, she reached Ravensham, she found her grandmother and Lord-Dennis in the white room. They were standing by one of the tall windows, apparently contemplating the view. They turned indeed at sound of Barbara\x92s approach, but neither of them spoke or nodded. Not having seen her grandfather since before Miltoun\x92s illness, Barbara found it strange to be so treated; she too took her stand silently before the window. A very large wasp was crawling up the pane, then slipping down with a faint buzz. Suddenly Lady Casterley spoke. \x93Kill that thing!\x94 Lord Dennis drew forth his handkerchief. \x93Not with that, Dennis. It will make a mess. Take a paper knife.\x94 \x93I was going to put it out,\x94 murmured Lord Dennis. \x93Let Barbara with her gloves.\x94 Barbara moved towards the pane. \x93It\x92s a hornet, I think,\x94 she said. \x93So he is!\x94 said Lord Dennis, dreamily: \x93Nonsense,\x94 murmured Lady Casterley, \x93it\x92s a common wasp.\x94 \x93I know it\x92s a hornet, Granny. The rings are darker.\x94 Lady Casterley bent down; when she raised herself she had a slipper in her hand. \x93Don\x92t irritate him!\x94 cried Barbara, catching her wrist. But Lady Casterley freed her hand. \x93I will,\x94 she said, and brought the sole of the slipper down on the insect, so that it dropped on the floor, dead. \x93He has no business in here.\x94 And, as if that little incident had happened to three other people, they again stood silently looking through the window. Then Lady Casterley turned to Barbara. \x93Well, have you realized the mischief that you\x92ve done?\x94 \x93Ann!\x94 murmured Lord Dennis. \x93Yes, yes; she is your favourite, but that won\x92t save her. This woman\x97to her great credit\x97I say to her great credit\x97has gone away, so as to put herself out of Eustace\x92s reach, until he has recovered his senses.\x94 With a sharp-drawn breath Barbara said: \x93Oh! poor thing!\x94 But on Lady Casterley\x92s face had come an almost cruel look. \x93Ah!\x94 she said: \x93Exactly. But, curiously enough, I am thinking of Eustace.\x94 Her little figure was quivering from head to foot: \x93This will be a lesson to you not to play with fire!\x94 \x93Ann!\x94 murmured Lord Dennis again, slipping his arm through Barbara\x92s. \x93The world,\x94 went on Lady Casterley, \x93is a place of facts, not of romantic fancies. You have done more harm than can possibly be repaired. I went to her myself. I was very much moved.\x92 If it hadn\x92t been for your foolish conduct\x97\x97\x94 \x93Ann!\x94 said Lord Dennis once more. Lady Casterley paused, tapping the floor with her little foot. Barbara\x92s eyes were gleaming. \x93Is there anything else you would like to squash, dear?\x94 \x93Babs!\x94 murmured Lord Dennis; but, unconsciously pressing his hand against her heart, the girl went on. \x93You are lucky to be abusing me to-day\x97if it had been yesterday\x97\x97\x94 At these dark words Lady Casterley turned away, her shoes leaving little dull stains on the polished floor. Barbara raised to her cheek the fingers which she had been so convulsively embracing. \x93Don\x92t let her go on, uncle,\x94 she whispered, \x93not just now!\x94 \x93No, no, my dear,\x94 Lord Dennis murmured, \x93certainly not\x97it is enough.\x94 \x93It has been your sentimental folly,\x94 came Lady Casterley\x92s voice from a far corner, \x93which has brought this on the boy.\x94 Responding to the pressure of the hand, back now at her waist, Barbara did not answer; and the sound of the little feet retracing their steps rose in the stillness. Neither of those two at the window turned their heads; once more the feet receded, and again began coming back. Suddenly Barbara, pointing to the floor, cried: \x93Oh! Granny, for Heaven\x92s sake, stand still; haven\x92t you squashed the hornet enough, even if he did come in where he hadn\x92t any business?\x94 Lady Casterley looked down at the debris of the insect. \x93Disgusting!\x94 she said; but when she next spoke it was in a less hard, more querulous voice. \x93That man\x97what was his name\x97have you got rid of him?\x94 Barbara went crimson. \x93Abuse my friends, and I will go straight home and never speak to you again.\x94 For a moment Lady Casterley looked almost as if she might strike her granddaughter; then a little sardonic smile broke out on her face. \x93A creditable sentiment!\x94 she said. Letting fall her uncle\x92s hand, Barbara cried: \x93In any case, I\x92d better go. I don\x92t know why you sent for me.\x94 Lady Casterley answered coldly: \x93To let you and your mother know of this woman\x92s most unselfish behaviour; to put you on the \x91qui vive\x92 for what Eustace may do now; to give you a chance to make up for your folly. Moreover to warn you against\x97\x97\x94 she paused. \x93Yes?\x94 \x93Let me\x97\x97\x94 interrupted Lord Dennis. \x93No, Uncle Dennis, let Granny take her shoe!\x94 She had withdrawn against the wall, tall, and as it were, formidable, with her head up. Lady Casterley remained silent. \x93Have you got it ready?\x94 cried Barbara: \x93Unfortunately he\x92s flown!\x94 A voice said: \x93Lord Miltoun.\x94 He had come in quietly and quickly, preceding the announcement, and stood almost touching that little group at the window before they caught sight of him. His face had the rather ghastly look of sunburnt faces from which emotion has driven the blood; and his eyes, always so much the most living part of him, were full of such stabbing anger, that involuntarily they all looked down. \x93I want to speak to you alone,\x94 he said to Lady Casterley. Visibly, for perhaps the first time in her life, that indomitable little figure flinched. Lord Dennis drew Barbara away, but at the door he whispered: \x93Stay here quietly, Babs; I don\x92t like the look of this.\x94 Unnoticed, Barbara remained hovering. The two voices, low, and so far off in the long white room, were uncannily distinct, emotion charging each word with preternatural power of penetration; and every movement of the speakers had to the girl\x92s excited eyes a weird precision, as of little figures she had once seen at a Paris puppet show. She could hear Miltoun reproaching his grandmother in words terribly dry and bitter. She edged nearer and nearer, till, seeing that they paid no more heed to her than if she were an attendant statue, she had regained her position by the window. Lady Casterley was speaking. \x93I was not going to see you ruined before my eyes, Eustace. I did what I did at very great cost. I did my best for you.\x94 Barbara saw Miltoun\x92s face transfigured by a dreadful smile\x97the smile of one defying his torturer with hate. Lady Casterley went on: \x93Yes, you stand there looking like a devil. Hate me if you like\x97but don\x92t betray us, moaning and moping because you can\x92t have the moon. Put on your armour, and go down into the battle. Don\x92t play the coward, boy!\x94 Miltoun\x92s answer cut like the lash of a whip. \x93By God! Be silent!\x94 And weirdly, there was silence. It was not the brutality of the words, but the sight of force suddenly naked of all disguise\x97like a fierce dog let for a moment off its chain\x97which made Barbara utter a little dismayed sound. Lady Casterley had dropped into a chair, trembling. And without a look Miltoun passed her. If their grandmother had fallen dead, Barbara knew he would not have stopped to see. She ran forward, but the old woman waved her away. \x93Go after him,\x94 she said, \x93don\x92t let him go alone.\x94 And infected by the fear in that wizened voice, Barbara flew. She caught her brother as he was entering the taxi-cab in which he had come, and without a word slipped in beside him. The driver\x92s face appeared at the window, but Miltoun only motioned with his head, as if to say: Anywhere, away from here! The thought flashed through Barbara: \x93If only I can keep him in here with me!\x94 She leaned out, and said quietly: \x93To Nettlefold, in Sussex\x97never mind your petrol\x97get more on the road. You can have what fare you like. Quick!\x94 The man hesitated, looked in her face, and said: \x93Very well; miss. By Dorking, ain\x92t it?\x94 Barbara nodded. CHAPTER XXVIII The clock over the stables was chiming seven when Miltoun and Barbara passed out of the tall iron gates, in their swift-moving small world, that smelled faintly of petrol. Though the cab was closed, light spurts of rain drifted in through the open windows, refreshing the girl\x92s hot face, relieving a little her dread of this drive. For, now that Fate had been really cruel, now that it no longer lay in Miltoun\x92s hands to save himself from suffering, her heart bled for him; and she remembered to forget herself. The immobility with which he had received her intrusion, was ominous. And though silent in her corner, she was desperately working all her woman\x92s wits to discover a way of breaking into the house of his secret mood. He appeared not even to have noticed that they had turned their backs on London, and passed into Richmond Park. Here the trees, made dark by rain, seemed to watch gloomily the progress of this whirring-wheeled red box, unreconciled even yet to such harsh intruders on their wind-scented tranquillity. And the deer, pursuing happiness on the sweet grasses, raised disquieted noses, as who should say: Poisoners of the fern, defilers of the trails of air! Barbara vaguely felt the serenity out there in the clouds, and the trees, and wind. If it would but creep into this dim, travelling prison, and help her; if it would but come, like sleep, and steal away dark sorrow, and in one moment make grief-joy. But it stayed outside on its wistful wings; and that grand chasm which yawns between soul and soul remained unbridged. For what could she say? How make him speak of what he was going to do? What alternatives indeed were now before him? Would he sullenly resign his seat, and wait till he could find Audrey Noel again? But even if he did find her, they would only be where they were. She had gone, in order not to be a drag on him\x97it would only be the same thing all over again! Would he then, as Granny had urged him, put on his armour, and go down into the fight? But that indeed would mean the end, for if she had had the strength to go away now, she would surely never come back and break in on his life a second time. And a grim thought swooped down on Barbara. What if he resigned everything! Went out into the dark! Men did sometimes\x97she knew\x97caught like this in the full flush of passion. But surely not Miltoun, with his faith! \x91If the lark\x92s song means nothing\x97if that sky is a morass of our invention\x97if we are pettily creeping on, furthering nothing\x97persuade me of it, Babs, and I\x92ll bless you.\x92 But had he still that anchorage, to prevent him slipping out to sea? This sudden thought of death to one for whom life was joy, who had never even seen the Great Stillness, was very terrifying. She fixed her eyes on the back of the chauffeur, in his drab coat with the red collar, finding some comfort in its solidity. They were in a taxi-cab, in Richmond Park! Death\x97incongruous, incredible death! It was stupid to be frightened! She forced herself to look at Miltoun. He seemed to be asleep; his eyes were closed, his arms folded\x97only a quivering of his eyelids betrayed him. Impossible to tell what was going on in that grim waking sleep, which made her feel that she was not there at all, so utterly did he seem withdrawn into himself! He opened his eyes, and said suddenly: \x93So you think I\x92m going to lay hands on myself, Babs?\x94 Horribly startled by this reading of her thoughts, Barbara could only edge away and stammer: \x93No; oh, no!\x94 \x93Where are we going in this thing?\x94 \x93Nettlefold. Would you like him stopped?\x94 \x93It will do as well as anywhere.\x94 Terrified lest he should relapse into that grim silence, she timidly possessed herself of his hand. It was fast growing dark; the cab, having left the villas of Surbiton behind, was flying along at great speed among pine-trees and stretches of heather gloomy with faded daylight. Miltoun said presently, in a queer, slow voice \x93If I want, I have only to open that door and jump. You who believe that \x91to-morrow we die\x92\x97give me the faith to feel that I can free myself by that jump, and out I go!\x94 Then, seeming to pity her terrified squeeze of his hand, he added: \x93It\x92s all right, Babs; we, shall sleep comfortably enough in our beds tonight.\x94 But, so desolate to the girl was his voice, that she hoped now for silence. \x93Let us be skinned quietly,\x94 muttered Miltoun, \x93if nothing else. Sorry to have disturbed you.\x94 Pressing close up to him, Barbara murmured: \x93If only\x97\x97Talk to me!\x94. But Miltoun, though he stroked her hand, was silent. The cab, moving at unaccustomed speed along these deserted roads, moaned dismally; and Barbara was possessed now by a desire which she dared not put in practice, to pull his head down, and rock it against her. Her heart felt empty, and timid; to have something warm resting on it would have made all the difference. Everything real, substantial, comforting, seemed to have slipped away. Among these flying dark ghosts of pine-trees\x97as it were the unfrequented borderland between two worlds\x97the feeling of a cheek against her breast alone could help muffle the deep disquiet in her, lost like a child in a wood. The cab slackened speed, the driver was lighting his lamps; and his red face appeared at the window. \x93We\x92ll \x91ave to stop here, miss; I\x92m out of petrol. Will you get some dinner, or go through?\x94 \x93Through,\x94 answered Barbara: While they were passing the little time, buying then petrol, asking the way, she felt less miserable, and even looked about her with a sort of eagerness. Then when they had started again, she thought: If I could get him to sleep\x97the sea will comfort him! But his eyes were staring, wide-open. She feigned sleep herself; letting her head slip a little to one side, causing small sounds of breathing to escape. The whirring of the wheels, the moaning of the cab joints, the dark trees slipping by, the scent of the wet fern drifting in, all these must surely help! And presently she felt that he was indeed slipping into darkness\x97and then-she felt nothing. When she awoke from the sleep into which she had seen Miltoun fall, the cab was slowly mounting a steep hill, above which the moon had risen. The air smelled strong and sweet, as though it had passed over leagues of grass. \x93The Downs!\x94 she thought; \x93I must have been asleep!\x94 In sudden terror, she looked round for Miltoun. But he was still there, exactly as before, leaning back rigid in his corner of the cab, with staring eyes, and no other signs of life. And still only half awake, like a great warm sleepy child startled out of too deep slumber, she clutched, and clung to him. The thought that he had been sitting like that, with his spirit far away, all the time that she had been betraying her watch in sleep, was dreadful. But to her embrace there was no response, and awake indeed now, ashamed, sore, Barbara released him, and turned her face to the air. Out there, two thin, dense-black, long clouds, shaped like the wings of a hawk, had joined themselves together, so that nothing of the moon showed but a living brightness imprisoned, like the eyes and life of a bird, between those swift sweeps of darkness. This great uncanny spirit, brooding malevolent over the high leagues of moon-wan grass, seemed waiting to swoop, and pluck up in its talons, and devour, all that intruded on the wild loneness of these far-up plains of freedom. Barbara almost expected to hear coming from it the lost whistle of the buzzard hawks. And her dream came back to her. Where were her wings-the wings that in sleep had borne her to the stars; the wings that would never lift her\x97waking\x97from the ground? Where too were Miltoun\x92s wings? She crouched back into her corner; a tear stole up and trickled out between her closed lids-another and another followed. Faster and faster they came. Then she felt Miltoun\x92s arm round her, and heard him say: \x93Don\x92t cry, Babs!\x94 Instinct telling her what to do, she laid her head against his chest, and sobbed bitterly. Struggling with those sobs, she grew less and less unhappy\x97knowing that he could never again feel quite so desolate, as before he tried to give her comfort. It was all a bad dream, and they would soon wake from it! And they would be happy; as happy as they had been before\x97before these last months! And she whispered: \x93Only a little while, Eusty!\x94 CHAPTER XXIX Old Lady Harbinger dying in the early February of the following year, the marriage of Barbara with her son was postponed till June. Much of the wild sweetness of Spring still clung to the high moor borders of Monkland on the early morning of the wedding day. Barbara was already up and dressed for riding when her maid came to call her; and noting Stacey\x92s astonished eyes fix themselves on her boots, she said: \x93Well, Stacey?\x94 \x93It\x92ll tire you.\x94 \x93Nonsense; I\x92m not going to be hung.\x94 Refusing the company of a groom, she made her way towards the stretch of high moor where she had ridden with Courtier a year ago. Here over the short, as yet unflowering, heather, there was a mile or more of level galloping ground. She mounted steadily, and her spirit rode, as it were, before her, longing to get up there among the peewits and curlew, to feel the crisp, peaty earth slip away under her, and the wind drive in her face, under that deep blue sky. Carried by this warm-blooded sweetheart of hers, ready to jump out of his smooth hide with pleasure, snuffling and sneezing in sheer joy, whose eye she could see straying round to catch a glimpse of her intentions, from whose lips she could hear issuing the sweet bitt-music, whose vagaries even seemed designed to startle from her a closer embracing\x97she was filled with a sort of delicious impatience with everything that was not this perfect communing with vigour. Reaching the top, she put him into a gallop. With the wind furiously assailing her face and throat, every muscle crisped; and all her blood tingling\x97this was a very ecstasy of motion! She reined in at the cairn whence she and Courtier had looked down at the herds of ponies. It was the merest memory now, vague and a little sweet, like the remembrance of some exceptional Spring day, when trees seem to flower before your eyes, and in sheer wantonness exhale a scent of lemons. The ponies were there still, and in distance the shining sea. She sat thinking of nothing, but how good it was to be alive. The fullness and sweetness of it all, the freedom and strength! Away to the West over a lonely farm she could see two buzzard hawks hunting in wide circles. She did not envy them\x97so happy was she, as happy as the morning. And there came to her suddenly the true, the overmastering longing of mountain tops. \x93I must,\x94 she thought; \x93I simply must!\x94 Slipping off her horse she lay down on her back, and at once everything was lost except the sky. Over her body, supported above solid earth by the warm, soft heather, the wind skimmed without sound or touch. Her spirit became one with that calm unimaginable freedom. Transported beyond her own contentment, she no longer even knew whether she was joyful. The horse Hal, attempting to eat her sleeve, aroused her. She mounted him, and rode down. Near home she took a short cut across a meadow, through which flowed two thin bright streams, forming a delta full of lingering \x91milkmaids,\x92 mauve marsh orchis, and yellow flags. From end to end of this long meadow, so varied, so pied with trees and stones, and flowers, and water, the last of the Spring was passing. Some ponies, shyly curious of Barbara and her horse, stole up, and stood at a safe distance, with their noses dubiously stretched out, swishing their lean tails. And suddenly, far up, following their own music, two cuckoos flew across, seeking the thorn-trees out on the moor. While she was watching the arrowy birds, she caught sight of someone coming towards her from a clump of beech-trees, and suddenly saw that it was Mrs. Noel! She rode forward, flushing. What dared she say? Could she speak of her wedding, and betray Miltoun\x92s presence? Could she open her mouth at all without rousing painful feeling of some sort? Then, impatient of indecision, she began: \x93I\x92m so glad to see you again. I didn\x92t know you were still down here.\x94 \x93I only came back to England yesterday, and I\x92m just here to see to the packing of my things.\x94 \x93Oh!\x94 murmured Barbara. \x93You know what\x92s happening to me, I suppose?\x94 Mrs. Noel smiled, looked up, and said: \x93I heard last night. All joy to you!\x94 A lump rose in Barbara\x92s throat. \x93I\x92m so glad to have seen you,\x94 she murmured once more; \x93I expect I ought to be getting on,\x94 and with the word \x93Good-bye,\x94 gently echoed, she rode away. But her mood of delight was gone; even the horse Hal seemed to tread unevenly, for all that he was going back to that stable which ever appeared to him desirable ten minutes after he had left it. Except that her eyes seemed darker, Mrs. Noel had not changed. If she had shown the faintest sign of self-pity, the girl would never have felt, as she did now, so sorry and upset. Leaving the stables, she saw that the wind was driving up a huge, white, shining cloud. \x93Isn\x92t it going to be fine after all!\x94 she thought. Re-entering the house by an old and so-called secret stairway that led straight to the library, she had to traverse that great dark room. There, buried in an armchair in front of the hearth she saw Miltoun with a book on his knee, not reading, but looking up at the picture of the old Cardinal. She hurried on, tiptoeing over the soft carpet, holding her breath, fearful of disturbing the queer interview, feeling guilty, too, of her new knowledge, which she did not mean to impart. She had burnt her fingers once at the flame between them; she would not do so a second time! Through the window at the far end she saw that the cloud had burst; it was raining furiously. She regained her bedroom unseen. In spite of her joy out there on the moor, this last adventure of her girlhood had not been all success; she had again the old sensations, the old doubts, the dissatisfaction which she had thought dead. Those two! To shut one\x92s eyes, and be happy\x97was it possible! A great rainbow, the nearest she had ever seen, had sprung up in the park, and was come to earth again in some fields close by. The sun was shining out already through the wind-driven bright rain. Jewels of blue had begun to star the black and white and golden clouds. A strange white light-ghost of Spring passing in this last violent outburst-painted the leaves of every tree; and a hundred savage hues had come down like a motley of bright birds on moor and fields. The moment of desperate beauty caught Barbara by the throat. Its spirit of galloping wildness flew straight into her heart. She clasped her hands across her breast to try and keep that moment. Far out, a cuckoo hooted-and the immortal call passed on the wind. In that call all the beauty, and colour, and rapture of life seemed to be flying by. If she could only seize and evermore have it in her heart, as the buttercups out there imprisoned the sun, or the fallen raindrops on the sweetbriars round the windows enclosed all changing light! If only there were no chains, no walls, and finality were dead! Her clock struck ten. At this time to-morrow! Her cheeks turned hot; in a mirror she could see them burning, her lips scornfully curved, her eyes strange. Standing there, she looked long at herself, till, little by little, her face lost every vestige of that disturbance, became solid and resolute again. She ceased to have the galloping wild feeling in her heart, and instead felt cold. Detached from herself she watched, with contentment, her own calm and radiant beauty resume the armour it had for that moment put off. After dinner that night, when the men left the dining-hall, Miltoun slipped away to his den. Of all those present in the little church he had seemed most unemotional, and had been most moved. Though it had been so quiet and private a wedding, he had resented all cheap festivity accompanying the passing of his young sister. He would have had that ceremony in the little dark disused chapel at the Court; those two, and the priest alone. Here, in this half-pagan little country church smothered hastily in flowers, with the raw singing of the half-pagan choir, and all the village curiosity and homage-everything had jarred, and the stale aftermath sickened him. Changing his swallow-tail to an old smoking jacket, he went out on to the lawn. In the wide darkness he could rid himself of his exasperation. Since the day of his election he had not once been at Monkland; since Mrs. Noel\x92s flight he had never left London. In London and work he had buried himself; by London and work he had saved himself! He had gone down into the battle. Dew had not yet fallen, and he took the path across the fields. There was no moon, no stars, no wind; the cattle were noiseless under the trees; there were no owls calling, no night-jars churring, the fly-by-night chafers were not abroad. The stream alone was alive in the quiet darkness. And as Miltoun followed the wispy line of grey path cleaving the dim glamour of daisies and buttercups, there came to him the feeling that he was in the presence, not of sleep, but of eternal waiting. The sound of his footfalls seemed desecration. So devotional was that hush, burning the spicy incense of millions of leaves and blades of grass. Crossing the last stile he came out, close to her deserted cottage, under her lime-tree, which on the night of Courtier\x92s adventure had hung blue-black round the moon. On that side, only a rail, and a few shrubs confined her garden. The house was all dark, but the many tall white flowers, like a bright vapour rising from earth, clung to the air above the beds. Leaning against the tree Miltoun gave himself to memory. From the silent boughs which drooped round his dark figure, a little sleepy bird uttered a faint cheep; a hedgehog, or some small beast of night, rustled away in the grass close by; a moth flew past, seeking its candle flame. And something in Miltoun\x92s heart took wings after it, searching for the warmth and light of his blown candle of love. Then, in the hush he heard a sound as of a branch ceaselessly trailed through long grass, fainter and fainter, more and more distinct; again fainter; but nothing could he see that should make that homeless sound. And the sense of some near but unseen presence crept on him, till the hair moved on his scalp. If God would light the moon or stars, and let him see! If God would end the expectation of this night, let one wan glimmer down into her garden, and one wan glimmer into his breast! But it stayed dark, and the homeless noise never ceased. The weird thought came to Miltoun that it was made by his own heart, wandering out there, trying to feel warm again. He closed his eyes and at once knew that it was not his heart, but indeed some external presence, unconsoled. And stretching his hands out he moved forward to arrest that sound. As he reached the railing, it ceased. And he saw a flame leap up, a pale broad pathway of light blanching the grass. And, realizing that she was there, within, he gasped. His fingernails bent and broke against the iron railing without his knowing. It was not as on that night when the red flowers on her windowsill had wafted their scent to him; it was no sheer overpowering rush of passion. Profounder, more terrible, was this rising up within him of yearning for love\x97as if, now defeated, it would nevermore stir, but lie dead on that dark grass beneath those dark boughs. And if victorious\x97what then? He stole back under the tree. He could see little white moths travelling down that path of lamplight; he could see the white flowers quite plainly now, a pale watch of blossoms guarding the dark sleepy ones; and he stood, not reasoning, hardly any longer feeling; stunned, battered by struggle. His face and hands were sticky with the honey-dew, slowly, invisibly distilling from the lime-tree. He bent down and felt the grass. And suddenly there came over him the certainty of her presence. Yes, she was there\x97out on the verandah! He could see her white figure from head to foot; and, not realizing that she could not see him, he expected her to utter some cry. But no sound came from her, no gesture; she turned back into the house. Miltoun ran forward to the railing. But there, once more, he stopped\x97unable to think, unable to feel; as it were abandoned by himself. And he suddenly found his hand up at his mouth, as though there were blood there to be staunched that had escaped from his heart. Still holding that hand before his mouth, and smothering the sound of his feet in the long grass, he crept away. CHAPTER XXX In the great glass house at Ravensham, Lady Casterley stood close to some Japanese lilies, with a letter in her hand. Her face was very white, for it was the first day she had been allowed down after an attack of influenza; nor had the hand in which she held the letter its usual steadiness. She read: \x93Monkland Court. \x93Just a line, dear, before the post goes, to tell you that Babs has gone off happily. The child looked beautiful. She sent you her love, and some absurd message\x97that you would be glad to hear, she was perfectly safe, with both feet firmly on the ground.\x94 A grim little smile played on Lady Casterley\x92s pale lips:\x97Yes, indeed, and time too! The child had been very near the edge of the cliffs! Very near committing a piece of romantic folly! That was well over! And raising the letter again, she read on: \x93We were all down for it, of course, and come back tomorrow. Geoffrey is quite cut up. Things can\x92t be what they were without our Babs. I\x92ve watched Eustace very carefully, and I really believe he\x92s safely over that affair at last. He is doing extraordinarily well in the House just now. Geoffrey says his speech on the Poor Law was head and shoulders the best made.\x94 Lady Casterley let fall the hand which held the letter. Safe? Yes, he was safe! He had done the right\x97the natural thing! And in time he would be happy! He would rise now to that pinnacle of desired authority which she had dreamed of for him, ever since he was a tiny thing, ever since his little thin brown hand had clasped hers in their wanderings amongst the flowers, and the furniture of tall rooms. But, as she stood\x97crumpling the letter, grey-white as some small resolute ghost, among her tall lilies that filled with their scent the great glass house-shadows flitted across her face. Was it the fugitive noon sunshine? Or was it some glimmering perception of the old Greek saying\x97\x91Character is Fate;\x92 some sudden sense of the universal truth that all are in bond to their own natures, and what a man has most desired shall in the end enslave him? *** End of this LibraryBlog Digital Book "The Patrician" *** Copyright 2023 LibraryBlog. All rights reserved.