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—a room so high that its carved ceiling

refused itself to exact scrutiny—travelled, 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—one of the finest in England—the 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's 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—no 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's 'own' 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—three maids, rosy, not silent,

bringing brushes. They passed, and were followed by two footmen—scouts

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—little 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.

“Here's a bumble bee, William. Do you think I could tame it in my little

glass bog?”

“No, I don't, Miss Ann; and look out, you'll be stung!”

“It wouldn't sting me.”

“Why not?”

“Because it wouldn't.”

“Of course—if you say so——”

“What time is the motor ordered?”

“Nine o'clock.”

“I'm going with Grandpapa as far as the gate.”

“Suppose he says you're not?”

“Well, then I shall go all the same.”

“I see.”

“I might go all the way with him to London! Is Auntie Babs going?”

“No, I don't think anybody is going with his lordship.”

“I would, if she were. William!”

“Yes.”

“Is Uncle Eustace sure to be elected?”

“Of course he is.”

“Do you think he'll be a good Member of Parliament?”

“Lord Miltoun is very clever, Miss Ann.”

“Is he?”

“Well, don't you think so?”

“Does Charles think so?”

“Ask him.”

“William!”

“Yes.”

“I don't like London. I like here, and I like Cotton, and I like home

pretty well, and I love Pendridny—and—I like Ravensham.”

“His lordship is going to Ravensham to-day on his way up, I heard say.”

“Oh! then he'll see great-granny. William——”

“Here's Miss Wallace.”

From the doorway a lady with a broad pale patient face said:

“Come, Ann.”

“All right! Hallo, Simmons!”

The entering butler replied:

“Hallo, Miss Ann!”

“I've got to go.”

“I'm sure we're very sorry.”

“Yes.”

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—the 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's, 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:

“Bore having to go up in such weather!”

“Is it a Cabinet meeting?”

“Yes. This confounded business of the balloons.” But the rather anxious

dark eyes of Agatha's delicate narrow face were taking in the details of

a tray for keeping dishes warm on a sideboard, and she was thinking:

“I believe that would be better than the ones I've got, after all. If

William would only say whether he really likes these large trays better

than single hot-water dishes!” She contrived how-ever to ask in her

gentle voice—for all her words and movements were gentle, even a little

timid, till anything appeared to threaten the welfare of her husband or

children:

“Do you think this war scare good for Eustace's prospects, Father?”

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 'Norman' type—having a certain firm regularity of

feature, and a slight aquilinity of nose high up on the bridge—but 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—Lady 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 'woman of the

world,' 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's remark.

“Of course, my dear, the very best thing possible.”

Lord Harbinger chimed in:

“By the way, Brabrook's going to speak on it. Did you ever hear him,

Lady Agatha? 'Mr. Speaker, Sir, I rise—and with me rises the democratic

principle——'”

But Agatha only smiled, for she was thinking:

“If I let Ann go as far as the gate, she'll only make it a

stepping-stone to something else to-morrow.” 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—as 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.

“Any message to your mother, Gertrude?”

“No, I wrote last night.”

“Tell Miltoun to keep—an eye on that Mr. Courtier. I heard him speak one

day—he's rather good.”

Lady Valleys, who had not yet sat down, accompanied her husband to the

door.

“By the way, I've told Mother about this woman, Geoff.”

“Was it necessary?”

“Well, I think so; I'm uneasy—after all, Mother has some influence with

Miltoun.”

Lord Valleys shrugged his shoulders, and slightly squeezing his wife's

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—especially 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.

“Lady Barbara down yet?” 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.

“Come on, Grandpapa!”

Lord Valleys grimaced beneath his crisp moustache—the word grandpapa

always fell queerly on the ears of one who was but fifty-six, and by no

means felt it—and jerking his gloved hand towards Ann, he said:

“Send down to the lodge gate for this.”

The voice of little Ann answered loudly:

“No; I'm coming back by myself.”

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—the increasing

volatility, cosmopolitanism, and even commercialism of his life, on

which he rather prided himself as a man of the world—was, 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's little daughter.

“Hallo, Susie!”

There was no answer, but the look on Susie's small pale face was so

humble and adoring that Lord Valleys, not a very observant man,

noticed it with a sort of satisfaction. “Yes,” he thought, somewhat

irrelevantly, “the country is sound at heart!”

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—in 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, “DEVON. “MY DEAR, MOTHER,

“Geoffrey is motoring up to-morrow. He'll look in on you on the way if

he can. This new war scare has taken him up. I shan't be in Town myself

till Miltoun's election is over. The fact is, I daren't leave him down

here alone. He sees his 'Anonyma' every day. That Mr. Courtier, who

wrote the book against War—rather cool for a man who's been a soldier

of fortune, don't you think?—is staying at the inn, working for the

Radical. He knows her, too—and, one can only hope, for Miltoun's sake,

too well—an 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—he's

really very astute. I must say, that she's quite a sweet-looking woman;

but absolutely nothing's known of her here except that she divorced

her husband. How does one find out about people? Miltoun's being

so extraordinarily strait-laced makes it all the more awkward. The

earnestness of this rising generation is most remarkable. I don't

remember taking such a serious view of life in my youth.”

Lady Casterley lowered the coronetted sheet of paper. The ghost of a

grimace haunted her face—she had not forgotten her daughter's youth.

Raising the letter again, she read on:

“I'm sure Geoffrey and I feel years younger than either Miltoun or

Agatha, though we did produce them. One doesn't feel it with Bertie or

Babs, luckily. The war scare is having an excellent effect on Miltoun's

candidature. Claud Harbinger is with us, too, working for Miltoun; but,

as a matter of fact, I think he's after Babs. It's rather melancholy,

when you think that Babs isn't quite twenty—still, one can't expect

anything else, I suppose, with her looks; and Claud is rather a fine

specimen. They talk of him a lot now; he's quite coming to the fore

among the young Tories.”

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.

“What was that noise, Clifton?”

“A posse of Socialists, my lady, on their way to Putney to hold a

demonstration; the people are hooting them. They've got blocked just

outside the gates.”

“Are they making speeches?”

“They are talking some kind of rant, my lady.”

“I'll go and hear them. Give me my black stick.”

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 'major-domo' 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's voice rose in shrill protest against

the exploitation of 'the people'; it sank in ironical comment on

Christianity; it demanded passionately to be free from the continuous

burden of 'this insensate militarist taxation'; it threatened that the

people would take things info their own hands.

Lady Casterley turned her head:

“He is talking nonsense, Clifton. It is going to rain. I shall go in.”

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's lips.

“It will do them good to have their ardour damped a little. You will

get wet, Clifton—hurry! I expect Lord Valleys to dinner. Have a room got

ready for him to dress. He's motoring from Monkland.”

CHAPTER III

In a very high, white-panelled room, with but little furniture, Lord

Valleys greeted his mother-in-law respectfully.

“Motored up in nine hours, Ma'am—not bad going.”

“I am glad you came. When is Miltoun's election?”

“On the twenty-ninth.”

“Pity! He should be away from Monkland, with that—anonymous woman living

there.”

“Ah! yes; you've heard of her!”

Lady Casterley replied sharply:

“You're too easy-going, Geoffrey.”

Lord Valleys smiled.

“These war scares,” he said, “are getting a bore. Can't quite make out

what the feeling of the country is about them.”

Lady Casterley rose:

“It has none. When war comes, the feeling will be all right. It always

is. Give me your arm. Are you hungry?”...

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—as for the lilies in the great glass

house—impossible 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 'good form' 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—the 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—a 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—and

that was her strength—blindness 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:

“I hope Miltoun is taking his own line?”

“That's the trouble. He suffers from swollen principles—only wish he

could keep them out of his speeches.”

“Let him be; and get him away from that woman as soon as his election's

over. What is her real name?”

“Mrs. something Lees Noel.”

“How long has she been there?”

“About a year, I think.”

“And you don't know anything about her?”

Lord Valleys raised his shoulders.

“Ah!” said Lady Casterley; “exactly! You're 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?”

Lord Valleys smiled. In this smile was the whole of his polite and

easy-going philosophy. “I am no meddler,” it seemed to say; and at sight

of that smile Lady Casterley tightened her lips.

“He is a firebrand,” she said. “I read that book of his against War—most

inflammatory. Aimed at Grant-and Rosenstern, chiefly. I've just seen,

one of the results, outside my own gates. A mob of anti-War agitators.”

Lord Valleys controlled a yawn.

“Really? I'd no idea Courtier had any influence.”

“He is dangerous. Most idealists are negligible-his book was clever.”

“I wish to goodness we could see the last of these scares, they only

make both countries look foolish,” muttered Lord Valleys.

Lady Casterley raised her glass, full of a bloody red wine. “The war

would save us,” she said.

“War is no joke.”

“It would be the beginning of a better state of things.”

“You think so?”

“We should get the lead again as a nation, and Democracy would be put

back fifty years.”

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: “I should have said that we were

all democrats nowadays.... What is it, Clifton?”

“Your chauffeur would like to know, what time you will have the car?”

“Directly after dinner.”

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' 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—as if he were

in the presence of a woman he was fond of.

“I hope to God,” he thought, “nothing'll come of these scares!” The

car glided on into the long road, swarming with traffic, towards the

fashionable heart of London. Outside stationers' shops, however, the

posters of evening papers were of no reassuring order.

'THE PLOT THICKENS.' 'MORE REVELATIONS.' 'GRAVE SITUATION THREATENED.'

And before each poster could be seen a little eddy in the stream of

the passers-by—formed 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. “Ignorant of the facts,

hypnotized by the words 'Country' and 'Patriotism'; 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!” 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's twinge of

pleasure he recollected that lady's 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—very charming figure, no lumber of any sort!

Bouquet about her! Some story or other, no doubt—no 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 'for the Terriers!' 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.

“Seem keen enough!” he thought. “Very little does it! Plenty of fighting

spirit in the country.” 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—men 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

'withdrawing-room' 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's 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.

“So, Mr. Courtier,” said the younger man, whose dry, ironic voice, like

his smile, seemed defending the fervid spirit in his eyes; “all 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.”

The man with the red moustaches laughed; the sound was queer—at once so

genial and so sardonic.

“Well put!” he said: “And 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.”

“I don't agree!”

“Agree or not, your position towards public affairs is very like the

Church's 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—it's too dried-up and far from things ever to understand them.

If you don't understand you can never rule. You might just as well keep

your hands in your pockets, as go into politics with your notions!”

“I fear we must continue to agree to differ.”

“Well; perhaps I do pay you too high a compliment. After all, you are a

patrician.”

“You speak in riddles, Mr. Courtier.”

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:

“We're tiring Mrs. Noel. Good-night, Audrey, It's high time I was off.”

Against the darkness of the open French window, he turned round to fire

a parting shot.

“What I meant, Lord Miltoun, was that your class is the driest and most

practical in the State—it's odd if it doesn't save you from a poet's

dreams. Good-night!” 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:

“Do you believe that, Mrs. Noel?”

For answer Audrey Noel smiled, then rose and went over to the window.

“Look at my dear toad! It comes here every evening!” 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.

“How peaceful your garden is!” 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—all

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's 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—but seemed to tremble and glow and

flutter, as though it were a spirit which had found its place of

resting.

In her garden,—all 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's 'majordomo,' 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's 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. “I tell you this, Clifton,” he would say, sitting on the

sideboard, or the arm of the big chair in Clifton's room, or wandering

amongst the raspberries, “because you are my friend.”

And Clifton, with his head a little on one side, and a sort of wise

concern at his 'friend's' confidences, which were sometimes of an

embarrassing description, would answer now and then: “Of course, my

lord,” but more often: “Of course, my dear.”

There was in this friendship something fine and suitable, neither of

these 'friends' 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—always 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 'smug,' 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 'fives' 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 'torpid.' 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 'Greats,' 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—though

he never knew the country—from 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 'Censorship of Literature' 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: “Better, sir,

it should run a risk than have no risk to run.” 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 “Eustace

Miltoun! Ah! Queer bird! Will make his mark!”

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—painter unknown—of 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's 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:

“Well, 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.”

Miltoun had answered: “Thanks, very much; I don't think so at present.”

Through the thin fume of his cigar Lord Valleys watched that long figure

sunk deep in the chair opposite.

“Why not?” he said. “You can't begin too soon; unless you think you

ought to go round the world.”

“Before I can become a man of it?”

Lord Valleys gave a rather disconcerted laugh.

“There's nothing in politics you can't pick up as you go along,” he

said. “How old are you?”

“Twenty-four.”

“You look older.” A faint line, as of contemplation, rose between his

eyes. Was it fancy that a little smile was hovering about Miltoun's

lips?

“I've got a foolish theory,” came from those lips, “that one must know

the conditions first. I want to give at least five years to that.”

Lord Valleys raised his eyebrows. “Waste of time,” he said. “You'd know

more at the end of it, if you went into the House at once. You take the

matter too seriously.”

“No doubt.”

For fully a minute Lord Valleys made no answer; he felt almost ruffled.

Waiting till the sensation had passed, he said: “Well, my dear fellow,

as you please.”

Miltoun's apprenticeship to the profession of politics was served in a

slum settlement; on his father's 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—even 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—the 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's 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—never in her class—associated 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 'Anonyma.'

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 'the gentry.' 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.

“Poor thing, not just now: let's wash it, and bind it up first.”

Together therefore they washed and bound up the cut. Having finished,

she looked at Miltoun, and seemed to say: “You would do the telling so

much better than I.”

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's 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—over 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—there 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: “You know about me, I suppose?” Miltoun made a

motion of his head, signifying that he did. His informant had been the

vicar.

“Yes, I am told, her story is a sad one—a divorce.”

“Do you mean that she has been divorced, or——”

For the fraction of a second the vicar perhaps had hesitated.

“Oh! no—no. Sinned against, I am sure. A nice woman, so far as I have

seen; though I'm afraid not one of my congregation.”

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—as if all objects whatsoever, dresses, flowers, books, music,

required from her the same sympathy.

He had come from a long day's 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.

“That has spoiled my vision,” he said. “Mrs. Noel, I have something I

want to say.” 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:

“Oh! ma'am—oh! my lord! They're devilling a gentleman on the green!”

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, “Peace-a lost Cause,” 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—the 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's 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's 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's 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's, and sudden soft u's; whence too a figure, a little unsteady, would

now and again emerge, to a chorus of 'Gude naights,' 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's

voice reading out loud. Laughter was smothered, talk whispered.

“He'm a-practisin' his spaches.” “Smoke the cunnin' old vox out!” “Red

pepper's the proper stuff.” “See men sneeze! We've a-screed up the

door.”

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:

“What's this?”

Out of the sounds of scuffling and scattering came the whisper: “His

lordship!” And the shade under the ash-trees became deserted, save by

the tall dark figure of a man, and a woman's white shape.

“Is that you, Mr. Courtier? Are you hurt?”

A chuckle rose from the recumbent figure.

“Only my knee. The beggars! They precious nearly choked me, though.”

CHAPTER VII

Bertie Caradoc, leaving the smoking-room at Monkland Court that same

evening,—on 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.'

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 'done well,' 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's

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.

“Have you put your knee out, sir? Hold on a minute! Get a chair,

Charles.”

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.

“H'm!” he said; “can 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!” And taking up the foot, he pulled. There was a

click, a little noise of teeth ground together; and Bertie said: “Good

man—shan't have to have the vet. to you, this time.”

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.

“Well, old man,” said Bertie, as they sought their rooms; “that's put

paid to his name—won't do you any more harm this journey. Good plucked

one, though!”

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's room, took her stand with face turned up and hands clasping her

belt, and began at once.

“Uncle 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”—there was a faint sound of small chumping teeth:

“And he's the man that's 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't be able to walk without a stick for a long time. Can I go to

Father?”

Agatha, who was having her hair brushed, thought:

“I'm not sure whether belts so low as that are wholesome,” murmured:

“Wait a minute!”

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—a tall man with a solid, steady face and

cautious eyes, not in truth remarkable except to his own wife.

“That fellow Courtier's caught by the leg,” he said. “Don't know what

your Mother will say to an enemy in the camp.”

“Isn't he a freethinker, and rather——”

Sir William, following his own thoughts, interrupted:

“Just as well, of course, so far as Miltoun's concerned, to have got him

here.”

Agatha sighed: “Well, I suppose we shall have to be nice to him. I'll

tell Mother.”

Sir William smiled.

“Ann will see to that,” 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:

“He fell out of the window because of the red pepper. Miss Wallace says

he is a hostage—what does hostage mean, Granny?”

When six years ago that word had first fallen on Lady Valleys' ears, she

had thought: “Oh! dear! Am I really Granny?” 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—especially 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 'impossible' Nonconformist Radical! This

Mr. Courtier was a free lance—rather a well-known man, an interesting

creature. She must see that he felt 'at home' and comfortable. If he

were pumped judiciously, no doubt one could find out about this woman.

Moreover, the acceptance of their 'salt' would silence him politically

if she knew anything of that type of man, who always had something in

him of the Arab's 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.

“I'm going to Auntie Babs now.”

“Very well; give me a kiss first.”

Little Ann thrust up her face, so that its sudden little nose penetrated

Lady Valleys' 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's, was, in spite of disagreements, by no means unfriendly; while

his feeling towards Miltoun's 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

'hands,' the parson who consigned his parishioners to hell, the peer who

rode roughshod—all 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's 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's 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 'back to the land'

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' 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:

“Thank you, I am well—and you?” perceiving the while that a pair of wide

frank eyes were examining his leg.

“Does it hurt?”

“Not to speak of.”

“My pony's leg was blistered. Granny is coming to look at it.”

“I see.”

“I have to go now. I hope you'll soon be better. Good-bye!”

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:

“I most heartily apologize to you, Mr. Courtier.”

“Not at all.”

“I do hope you're comfortable. Have they given you everything you want?”

“More than everything.”

“It really was disgraceful! However it's brought us the pleasure of

making your acquaintance. I've read your book, of course.”

To Courtier it seemed that on this lady's face had come a look which

seemed to say: Yes, very clever and amusing, quite enjoyable! But the

ideas——What? You know very well they won't do—in fact they mustn't do!

“That's very nice of you.”

But into Lady Valleys' answer, “I don't agree with it a bit, you know!”

there had crept a touch of asperity, as though she knew that he had

smiled inside. “What we want preached in these days are the warlike

virtues—especially by a warrior.”

“Believe me, Lady Valleys, the warlike virtues are best left to men of

more virgin imagination.”

He received a quick look, and the words: “Anyway, I'm sure you don't

care a rap for politics. You know Mrs. Lees Noel, don't you? What a

pretty woman she is!”

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—the colour

of beech-leaves in autumn with the sun shining through—was 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' words:

“Ah, Babs! My daughter Barbara—Mr. Courtier,” he put out his hand,

received within it some gauntleted fingers held out with a smile, and

heard her say:

“Miltoun's 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:”

“You had better take Ann, or she'll make our lives a burden; and perhaps

Mr. Courtier would like an airing. Is your knee fit, do you think?”

Glancing at the apparition, Courtier replied:

“It is.”

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.

“Well then,” she said, “we'd better look for Ann.”

After short but vigorous search little Ann was found—in 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

'old' 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.

“Auntie Babs, it wasn't a very strong house, was it?”

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.

“He was a silly man to build it, wasn't he, Ann? That's why they call it

Ashman's Folly.”

“Is he alive?”

“Not quite—it's just a hundred years ago.”

“What made him build it here?”

“He hated women, and—the roof fell in on him.”

“Why did he hate women?”

“He was a crank.”

“What is a crank?”

“Ask Mr. Courtier.”

Under this girl's calm quizzical glance, Courtier endeavoured to find an

answer to that question.

“A crank,” he said slowly, “is a man like me.”

He heard a little laugh, and became acutely conscious of Ann's

dispassionate examining eyes.

“Is Uncle Eustace a crank?”

“You know now, Mr. Courtier, what Ann thinks of you. You think a good

deal of Uncle Eustace, don't you, Ann?”

“Yes,” said Ann, and fixed her eyes before her. But Courtier gazed

sideways—over 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—as sure to win, as that grass

was green. It was difficult to believe her Miltoun's 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—the range was wide.

But the car had left the moor, and, down a steep hill, was passing

the small villas and little grey workmen's houses outside the town of

Bucklandbury.

“Ann and I have to go on to Miltoun's headquarters. Shall I drop you at

the enemy's, Mr. Courtier? Stop, please, Frith.”

And before Courtier could assent, they had pulled up at a house on which

was inscribed with extraordinary vigour: “Chilcox for Bucklandbury.”

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.

“Mr. Courtier, I believe,” he said bluffly. “Glad to see you, sir. Most

distressed to hear of this outrage. Though in a way, it's done us good.

Yes, really. Grossly against fair play. Shouldn't be surprised if it

turned a couple of hundred votes. You carry the effects of it about with

you, I see.”

A thin, refined man, with wiry hair, also came up, holding a newspaper

in his hand.

“It has had one rather embarrassing effect,” he said. “Read this

“'OUTRAGE ON A DISTINGUISHED VISITOR.

“'LORD MILTOUN'S EVENING ADVENTURE.'”

Courtier read a paragraph.

The man with the little eyes broke the ominous silence which ensued.

“One 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—simply state the facts. Quite enough,” he added

with impersonal grimness; “I think he's done for himself, sir.”

The man with the refined face added nervously:

“We couldn't help it, Mr. Courtier; I really don't know what we can do.

I don't like it a bit.”

“Has your candidate seen this?” Courtier asked.

“Can't have,” struck in the third Committee-man; “we hadn't seen it

ourselves until an hour ago.”

“I should never have permitted it,” said the man with the refined face;

“I blame the editor greatly.”

“Come to that——” said the little-eyed man, “it's a plain piece of news.

If it makes a stir, that's not our fault. The paper imputes nothing, it

states. Position of the lady happens to do the rest. Can't help it, and

moreover, sir, speaking for self, don't want to. We'll have no loose

morals in public life down here, please God!” There was real feeling in

his words; then, catching sight of Courtier's face, he added: “Do you

know this lady?”

“Ever since she was a child. Anyone who speaks evil of her, has to

reckon with me.”

The man with the refined face said earnestly:

“Believe me, Mr. Courtier, I entirely sympathize. We had nothing to

do with the paragraph. It's one of those incidents where one benefits

against one's will. Most unfortunate that she came out on to the green

with Lord Miltoun; you know what people are.”

“It's the head-line that does it;” said the third Committee-man;

“they've put what will attract the public.”

“I don't know, I don't know,” said the little-eyed man stubbornly; “if

Lord Miltoun will spend his evenings with lonely ladies, he can't blame

anybody but himself.”

Courtier looked from face to face.

“This closes my connection with the campaign,” he said: “What's the

address of this paper?” 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—that 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—foe 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 'Bohemians,' whom

she occasionally met, were after all only 'chaplains to the Court,'

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: “To the station, Frith. Quick, please!” and began:

“You are not to be trusted a bit. What were you doing?”

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. “Very well,

my dear,” 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.

“Is anything wrong, Mr. Courtier?”

“Yes, Lady Barbara, something is very wrong—that miserable mean thing,

the human tongue.”

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's brown hair, she said:

“Anything to do with Mrs. N——-?” Seeing “Yes” in his eyes, she added

quickly: “And M——-?”

Courtier nodded.

“I thought that was coming. Let them babble! Who cares?”

She caught an approving glance, and the word, “Good!”

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.

“Well, Frith!—Mr. Courtier, is it? I know your book, and I don't approve

of you; you're a dangerous man—How do you do? I must have those two

bags. The cart can bring the rest.... Randle, get up in front, and don't

get dusty. Ann!” But Ann was already beside the chauffeur, having long

planned this improvement. “H'm! So you've hurt your leg, sir? Keep

still! We can sit three.... Now, my dear, I can kiss you! You've grown!”

Lady Casterley's kiss, once received, was never forgotten; neither

perhaps was Barbara's. 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. 'Sitting three' 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—a little sharpened—followed 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.

“You smell nice down here,” she said. “Now, Mr. Courtier, before I

forget—who is this Mrs. Lees Noel that I hear so much of?”

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!

“A very charming woman, Lady Casterley.”

“No doubt; but I am tired of hearing that. What is her story?”

“Has she one?”

“Ha!” said Lady Casterley.

Ever so slightly Barbara let her arm press against Courtiers. It was so

delicious to hear Granny getting no forwarder.

“I may take it she has a past, then?”

“Not from me, Lady Casterley.”

Again Barbara gave him that imperceptible and flattering touch.

“Well, this is all very mysterious. I shall find out for myself. You

know her, my dear. You must take me to see her.”

“Dear Granny! If people hadn't pasts, they wouldn't have futures.”

Lady Casterley let her little claw-like hand descend on her

grand-daughter's thigh.

“Don't talk nonsense, and don't stretch like that!” she said; “you're

too large already....”

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's 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 'the rag' 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's 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—a

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: “What is, my dear young man?” 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. “Bad as that? Well, there's

old Fitz-Harold! Try him! He won't advise you, but he'll say something.”

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 “Forgot you didn't know, sir. Bertie will

explain.”

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—a nice woman—Mr. Courtier knew her—old Miltoun went there

sometimes—rather late the other evening—these devils were making the

most of it—suggesting—lose him the election, if they didn't 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's rescue. You couldn't 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—a man

not accustomed to underrate difficulties—was 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—dining in his room? Bertie suggested that if Miltoun was at

Valleys House, it mightn't 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' heads, natural to young men of breeding.

Then, out of another silence came the voice of Lord Dennis:

“I am thinking of this poor lady.”

Turning a little abruptly towards that dry suave voice, and recovering

the self-possession which seldom deserted him, Harbinger murmured:

“Quite so, sir; of course!”

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's 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's 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—that rather strange and unknown grandson,

son, and brother—counted 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's 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—as 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—Youth 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.

“If only he weren't such a queer boy! He's quite capable of marrying her

from sheer perversity.”

“What!” said Lady Casterley.

“You haven't seen her, my dear. A most unfortunately attractive

creature—quite a charming face.”

Agatha said quietly:

“Mother, if she was divorced, I don't think Eustace would.”

“There's that, certainly,” murmured Lady Valleys; “hope for the best!”

“Don't you even know which way it was?” said Lady Casterley.

“Well, the vicar says she did the divorcing. But he's very charitable;

it may be as Agatha hopes.”

“I detest vagueness. Why doesn't someone ask the woman?”

“You shall come with me, Granny dear, and ask her yourself; you will do

it so nicely.”

Lady Casterley looked up.

“We shall see,” 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—though admiration was not

what she excelled in—that 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:

“If people had no pasts, they would have no futures.” 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.

“And where have you been meeting this—er—anonymous creature?” she asked.

Barbara came from the hearth, and bending down beside Lady Casterley's

chair, seemed to envelop her completely.

“I'm all right, Granny; she couldn't corrupt me.”

Lady Casterley's face peered out doubtfully from that warmth, wearing a

look of disapproving pleasure.

“I know your wiles!” she said. “Come, now!”

“I see her about. She's nice to look at. We talk.”

Again with that hurried quietness Agatha said:

“My dear Babs, I do think you ought to wait.”

“My dear Angel, why? What is it to me if she's had four husbands?”

Agatha bit her lips, and Lady Valleys murmured with a laugh:

“You really are a terror, Babs.”

But the sound of Mrs. Winlow's music had ceased—the 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—Winlow had it very specially that

this would be over in a week—to Brabrook's speech, in progress at

that very moment, of which Harbinger provided an imitation. It sped to

Winlow's flight—to Andrew Grant's articles in the 'Parthenon'—to the

caricature of Harbinger in the 'Cackler', inscribed 'The New Tory. Lord

H-rb-ng-r brings Social Reform beneath the notice of his friends,'

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's 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:

“Nice things, these, Babs!”

Receiving no answer he looked up.

There indeed stood Barbara.

“I do hate sneering behind people's backs!”

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.

“We can't do anything in our lives, it seems to me,” she said, “but play

at taking risks!”

Lord Dennis replied dryly:

“I don't think I understand, my dear.”

“Look at Mr. Courtier!” muttered Barbara. “His life's so much more risky

altogether than any of our men folk lead. And yet they sneer at him.”

“Let's see, what has he done?”

“Oh! I dare say not very much; but it's all neck or nothing. But what

does anything matter to Harbinger, for instance? If his Social Reform

comes to nothing, he'll still be Harbinger, with fifty thousand a year.”

Lord Dennis looked up a little queerly.

“What! Is it possible you don't take the young man seriously, Babs?”

Barbara shrugged; a strap slipped a little off one white shoulder.

“It's all play really; and he knows it—you can tell that from his voice.

He can't help its not mattering, of course; and he knows that too.”

“I have heard that he's after you, Babs; is that true?”

“He hasn't caught me yet.”

“Will he?”

Barbara's 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.

“And this Mr. Courtier,” said Lord Dennis dryly: “Are you after him?”

“I'm after everything; didn't you know that, dear?”

“In reason, my child.”

“In reason, of course—like poor Eusty!” 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.

“Will you sing that song I like so much, Lady Babs?”

They moved away together; and Lord Dennis, gazing after that magnificent

young couple, stroked his beard gravely.

CHAPTER X

Miltoun's 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—he 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—a 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—all 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's

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: “Oh! yes,

I remember her case perfectly. She was the poor woman who——” “Did not,

I am certain, Lady Bonington.” 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—which had in it invincible

self-reliance, and a sort of spiritual sneer—played over his face when

he speculated on his father's 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

'omniuin gatherum', 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:

“Bloodee discoveree in a Bank—Grite sensytion! Pi-er!”

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—the myriad aspiration

of men and women, the praying of the uncounted multitude to the goddess

of Sensation—of 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—no 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's 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—a Mores 'Utopia.' That particular edition (he assured

Miltoun) was quite unprocurable—he 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—a genuine book,

a bargain. There wasn't 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 'Tranibore,' began to make its way slowly towards the very

centre of the volume.

“I see it's genuine,” said Miltoun.

“It's not to read, my lord,” the little man warned him: “Hardly safe to

turn the pages. As I was saying—I've not had a better piece this year. I

haven't really!”

“Shrewd old dreamer,” muttered Miltoun; “the Socialists haven't got

beyond him, even now.”

The little man's eyes blinked, as though apologizing for the views of

Thomas More.

“Well,” he said, “I suppose he was one of them. I forget if your

lordship's very strong on politics?”

Miltoun smiled.

“I 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.”

The little man nodded.

“Quite so, quite so,” he said; “we shall come to that, I dare say.”

“We must, Rimall.” And Miltoun turned the page.

The little man's face quivered.

“I don't think,” he said, “that book's quite strong enough for you, my

lord, with your taste for reading. Now I've a most curious old volume

here—on Chinese temples. It's rare—but not too old. You can peruse it

thoroughly. It's what I call a book to browse on just suit your palate.

Funny principle they built those things on,” he added, opening the

volume at an engraving, “in layers. We don't build like that in

England.”

Miltoun looked up sharply; the little man's face wore no signs of

understanding.

“Unfortunately we don't, Rimall,” he said; “we ought to, and we shall.

I'll take this book.”

Placing his finger on the print of the pagoda, he added: “A good

symbol.”

The little bookseller's eye strayed down the temple to the secret price

mark.

“Exactly, my lord,” he said; “I thought it'd be your fancy. The price to

you will be twenty-seven and six.”

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.

“Day off, my dear fellow? Or have you come up to hear Brabrook pitch

into us? He's rather late this time—we've got rid of that balloon

business no trouble after all.”

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's answer: “I came up to tell you some thing, sir,” riveted his

father's 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's 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 'waited

in front' 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—for something in Lord Valleys' 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—versatile, 'full of beans,' 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—but there would be

no difficulty with him, he would never 'run out'—light 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—not of the gab, like Harbinger's—but 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 'pukka' aristocrat—no better than a Socialist,

with his confounded way of seeing things all cut and dried; his ideas

of forcing reforms down people's 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' 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—dangerous—very!

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's. What had he

come up to tell him?

The phrase had been ominous; he could not recollect Miltoun's ever

having told him anything. For though a really kind and indulgent father,

he had—like so many men occupied with public and other lives—a 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's news, betraying no

uneasiness.

Miltoun seemed in no hurry. He described Courtier's adventure, which

tickled Lord Valleys a good deal.

“Ordeal by red pepper! Shouldn't have thought them equal to that,” he

said. “So you've got him at Monkland now. Harbinger still with you?”

“Yes. I don't think Harbinger has much stamina.

“Politically?”

Miltoun nodded.

“I rather resent his being on our side—I don't think he does us any

good. You've seen that cartoon, I suppose; it cuts pretty deep. I

couldn't recognize you amongst the old women, sir.”

Lord Valleys smiled impersonally.

“Very clever thing. By the way; I shall win the Eclipse, I think.”

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:

“I want to marry Mrs. Noel, sir.”

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.

“Isn't this rather sudden?”

Miltoun answered: “I've wanted to from the moment I first saw her.”

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:

“My dear fellow, it's good of you to have told me this; though, to be

quite frank, it's a piece of news I would rather not have heard.”

A dusky flush burned slowly up in Miltoun's cheeks. He had underrated

his father; the man had coolness and courage in a crisis.

“What is your objection, sir?” And suddenly he noticed that a wafer in

Lord Valleys' 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.

“We are men of the world,” he said.

Miltoun answered: “I am not.”

Showing his first real symptom of impatience Lord Valleys rapped out:

“So be it! I am.”

“Yes?”, said Miltoun.

“Eustace!”

Nursing one knee, Miltoun faced that appeal without the faintest

movement. His eyes continued to burn into his father's face. A tremor

passed over Lord Valleys' 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.

“I forgot,” he said; “you don't.”

And lighting a cigar, he smoked gravely, looking straight before him, a

furrow between his brows. He spoke at last:

“She looks like a lady. I know nothing else about her.”

The smile deepened round Miltoun's mouth.

“Why should you want to know anything else?”

Lord Valleys shrugged. His philosophy had hardened.

“I understand for one thing,” he said coldly; “that there is a matter of

a divorce. I thought you took the Church's view on that subject.”

“She has not done wrong.”

“You know her story, then?”

“No.”

Lord Valleys raised his brows, in irony and a sort of admiration.

“Chivalry the better part of discretion?”

Miltoun answered:

“You don't, 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.”

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.

“I can say no more at the moment,” he muttered and got up from the

table.

CHAPTER XI

Lady Casterley was that inconvenient thing—an 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's maid at seven o'clock,

and said: “My old lady wants Lady Babs to get up,” there was no

particular pain in the breast of Barbara's maid, who was doing up her

corsets. She merely answered “I'll see to it. Lady Babs won't be too

pleased!” 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: “I'd like to have hair and a mouth like that!” She

could not help smiling to herself with pleasure; Lady Babs looked so

pretty—prettier 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's 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:

“Is it eight o'clock, Stacey?”

“No, but Lady Casterley wants you to walk with her.”

“Oh! bother! I was having such a dream!”

“Yes; you were smiling.”

“I was dreaming that I could fly.”

“Fancy!”

“I 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.”

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's mind.

“These flying machines are stupid,” murmured Barbara; “the pleasure's in

one's body—-wings!”

“I can see Lady Casterley in the garden.”

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's 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: “The Winged Victory!”

Barbara's answer was equally symbolic: “A buzzard hawk! Do you know, I

dreamed we were flying, Mr. Courtier.”

Courtier gravely answered

“If the gods give me that dream——”

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:

“What is this thing?”

“Nemesia.”

“Never heard of it.”

“It's rather the fashion, Granny.”

“Nemesia?” repeated Lady Casterley. “What has Nemesis to do with

flowers? I have no patience with gardeners, and these idiotic names.

Where is your hat? I like that duck's egg colour in your frock. There's

a button undone.” And reaching up her little spidery hand, wonderfully

steady considering its age, she buttoned the top button but one of

Barbara's bodice.

“You look very blooming, my dear,” she said. “How far is it to this

woman's cottage? We'll go there now.”

“She wouldn't be up.”

Lady Casterley's eyes gleamed maliciously.

“You tell me she's so nice,” she said. “No nice unencumbered woman lies

in bed after half-past seven. Which is the very shortest way? No, Ann,

we can't take you.”

Little Ann, after regarding her great-grandmother rather too intently,

replied:

“Well, I can't come, you see, because I've got to go.”

“Very well,” said Lady Casterley, “then trot along.”

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.

“Ha!” 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—she 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's 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—than whom none could better use a stiff and polished phrase, or

the refinements of the French language—were 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's 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—even when young and conquering like

Barbara—she felt suddenly sorry, as though she had caught sight of the

pale spectre never yet seen by her. “Poor old dear,” she thought; “what

a pity to be old!”

But they had entered the footpath crossing three long meadows which

climbed up towards Mrs. Noel's. 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:

“Granny, that's a bull!”

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.

“I dislike bulls,” she said; “I think I must walk backward.”

“You can't; it's too uphill.”

“I am not going to turn back,” said Lady Casterley. “The 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.”

They stood still and looked at the bull, who continued to approach.

“It doesn't stop him,” said Lady Casterley. “We must take no notice.

Give me your arm, my dear; my legs feel rather funny.”

Barbara put her arm round the little figure. They walked on.

“I have not been used to bulls lately,” said Lady Casterley. The bull

came nearer.

“Granny,” said Barbara, “you must go quietly on to the stile. When

you're over I'll come too.”

“Certainly not,” said Lady Casterley, “we will go together. Take no

notice of him; I have great faith in that.”

“Granny darling, you must do as I say, please; I remember this bull, he

is one of ours.”

At those rather ominous words Lady Casterley gave her a sharp glance.

“I shall not go,” she said. “My legs feel quite strong now. We can run,

if necessary.”

“So can the bull,” said Barbara.

“I'm not going to leave you,” muttered Lady Casterley. “If he turns

vicious I shall talk to him. He won't touch me. You can run faster than

I; so that's settled.”

“Don't be absurd, dear,” answered Barbara; “I am not afraid of bulls.”

Lady Casterley flashed a look at her which had a gleam of amusement.

“I can feel you,” she said; “you're just as trembly as I am.”

The bull was now distant some eighty yards, and they were still quite a

hundred from the stile.

“Granny,” said Barbara, “if you don't go on as I tell you, I shall just

leave you, and go and meet him! You mustn't be obstinate!”

Lady Casterley's answer was to grip her granddaughter round the waist;

the nervous force of that thin arm was surprising.

“You will do nothing of the sort,” she said. “I refuse to have anything

more to do with this bull; I shall simply pay no attention.”

The bull now began very slowly ambling towards them.

“Take no notice,” said Lady Casterley, who was walking faster than she

had ever walked before.

“The ground is level now,” said Barbara; “can you run?”

“I think so,” 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's voice:

“We must stop. He's on us. Get behind me.”

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.

“Let me go!” she gasped; “let me go!”

And suddenly she felt herself being propelled by that softness forward

towards the stile.

“Shoo!” she said; “shoo!”

“Granny,” Barbara's voice came, calm and breathless, “don't! You only

excite him! Are we near the stile?”

“Ten yards,” panted Lady Casterley.

“Look out, then!” 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:

“You awful brute!” she said; “I will have you well flogged.”

Gently pawing the ground, the bull snuffled.

“Are you any the worse, child?”

“Not a scrap,” said Barbara's serene, still breathless voice.

Lady Casterley put up her hands, and took the girl's face between them.

“What legs you have!” she said. “Give me a kiss!”

Having received a hot, rather quivering kiss, she walked on, holding

somewhat firmly to Barbara's arm.

“As for that bull,” she murmured, “the brute—to attack women!”

Barbara looked down at her.

“Granny,” she said, “are you sure you're not shaken?”

Lady Casterley, whose lips were quivering, pressed them together very

hard.

“Not a b-b-bit.”

“Don't you think,” said Barbara, “that we had better go back, at

once—the other way?”

“Certainly not. There are no more bulls, I suppose, between us and this

woman?”

“But are you fit to see her?”

Lady Casterley passed her handkerchief over her lips, to remove their

quivering.

“Perfectly,” she answered.

“Then, dear,” said Barbara, “stand still a minute, while I dust you

behind.”

This having been accomplished, they proceeded in the direction of Mrs.

Noel's cottage.

At sight of it, Lady Casterley said:

“I shall put my foot down. It's out of the question for a man of

Miltoun's prospects. I look forward to seeing him Prime Minister some

day.” Hearing Barbara's voice murmuring above her, she paused: “What's

that you say?”

“I said: What is the use of our being what we are, if we can't love whom

we like?”

“Love!” said Lady Casterley; “I was talking of marriage.”

“I am glad you admit the distinction, Granny dear.”

“You are pleased to be sarcastic,” said Lady Casterley. “Listen to me!

It's 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's 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—” Lady

Casterley paused again, and her fingers pinched Barbara's arm, “or for

you—there's only one sort of marriage possible. As for Eustace, I shall

speak to this good lady, and see that he doesn't get entangled further.”

Absorbed in the intensity of her purpose, she did not observe a peculiar

little smile playing round Barbara's lips.

“You had better speak to Nature, too, Granny!”

Lady Casterley stopped short, and looked up in her granddaughter's face.

“Now what do you mean by that?” she said “Tell me!”

But noticing that Barbara's lips had closed tightly, she gave her arm a

hard—if unintentional-pinch, and walked on.

CHAPTER XII

Lady Casterley's 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.

“You are going to be good, Granny?”

“As to that—it will depend.”

“You promised.”

“H'm!”

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 'joy in life' 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:

“We've just had an encounter with a bull. This is my grandmother, Lady

Casterley.”

The little old lady's 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 'birth' 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.

“How do you do?” she said. “I have heard of you. May we sit down for a

minute in your garden? The bull was a wretch!”

But even in speaking, she was uneasily conscious that Mrs. Noel's 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.

“Babs,” she said, “go to the Inn and order me a 'fly.' I shall drive

back, I feel very shaky,” and, as Mrs. Noel offered to send her maid,

she added:

“No, no, my granddaughter will go.”

Barbara having departed with a quizzical look, Lady Casterley patted the

rustic seat, and said:

“Do come and sit down, I want to talk to you:”

Mrs. Noel obeyed. And at once Lady Casterley perceived that “she 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—to a person so 'sympathetic' one should be

able to say anything, and—one couldn't! It was awkward. And suddenly she

noticed that Mrs. Noel was sitting perfectly upright, as upright—more

upright, than she was herself. A bad, sign—a very bad sign! Taking out

her handkerchief, she put it to her lips.

“I suppose you think,” she said, “that we were not chased by a bull.”

“I am sure you were.”

“Indeed! Ah! But I've something else to talk to you about.”

Mrs. Noel's 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.

“I am an old woman,” she said, “and you mustn't mind what I say.”

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—with 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:

“I don't want to hurt you, my dear. It's about my grandson, of course.”

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's aid.

“His name,” she said, “is being coupled with yours in a way that's doing

him a great deal of harm. You don't wish to injure him, I'm sure.”

Mrs. Noel shook her head, and Lady Casterley went on:

“I don't know what they're not saying since the evening your friend

Mr. Courtier hurt his knee. Miltoun has been most unwise. You had not

perhaps realized that.”

Mrs. Noel's answer was bitterly distinct:

“I didn't know anyone was sufficiently interested in my doings.”

Lady Casterley suffered a gesture of exasperation to escape her.

“Good heavens!” she said; “every common person is interested in a woman

whose position is anomalous. Living alone as you do, and not a widow,

you're fair game for everybody, especially in the country.”

Mrs. Noel's sidelong glance, very clear and cynical, seemed to say:

“Even for you.”

“I am not entitled to ask your story,” Lady Casterley went on, “but 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.”

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:

“Anything serious, of course, is out of the question.”

“Quite.”

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—very feminine—the 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.

“I am ready to walk home now,” she said. And getting up from the rustic

seat, she made Mrs. Noel a satirical little bow.

“Thank you for letting me rest. Give me your arm, child.”

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.

“What about the 'fly,' Granny?”

“What 'fly'?”

“The one you told me to order.”

“You don't mean to say that you took me seriously?”

“No,” said Barbara.

“Ha!”

They proceeded some little way farther before Lady Casterley said

suddenly:

“She is deep.”

“And dark,” said Barbara. “I am afraid you were not good!”

Lady Casterley glanced upwards.

“I detest this habit,” she said, “amongst you young people, of taking

nothing seriously. Not even bulls,” she added, with a grim smile.

Barbara threw back her head and sighed.

“Nor 'flys,'” she said.

Lady Casterley saw that she had closed her eyes and opened her lips. And

she thought:

“She's a very beautiful girl. I had no idea she was so beautiful—but too

big!” And she added aloud:

“Shut your mouth! You will get one down!”

They spoke no more till they had entered the avenue; then Lady Casterley

said sharply:

“Who is this coming down the drive?”

“Mr. Courtier, I think.”

“What does he mean by it, with that leg?”

“He is coming to talk to you, Granny.”

Lady Casterley stopped short.

“You are a cat,” she said; “a sly cat. Now mind, Babs, I won't have it!”

“No, darling,” murmured Barbara; “you shan't have it—I'll take him off

your hands.”

“What does your mother mean,” stammered Lady Casterley, “letting you

grow up like this! You're as bad as she was at your age!”

“Worse!” said Barbara. “I dreamed last night that I could fly!”

“If you try that,” said Lady Casterley grimly, “you'll soon come to

grief. Good-morning, sir; you ought to be in bed!”

Courtier raised his hat.

“Surely it is not for me to be where you are not!” And he added

gloomily: “The war scare's dead!”

“Ah!” said Lady Casterley: “your occupation's gone then. You'll go back

to London now, I suppose.” Looking suddenly at Barbara she saw that the

girl's eyes were half-closed, and that she was smiling; it seemed to

Lady Casterley too or was it fancy?—that 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's 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—so 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's 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's 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's

inquiry:

“When does Miltoun return?”

He had wired, it seemed, to say that he was motoring down that night.

“The sooner the better,” Sir William murmured: “we've still a

fortnight.”

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.

“Eustace declares his intention of marrying this Mrs. Noel”—so ran

her husband's letter—“I 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's the very devil.”

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—especially if it were a

marriage—to 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—for this must indeed be 'the marriage of two minds' (or

whatever that quotation was)—she felt strangely jealous of a woman, who

had won her son's 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:

“I wonder if you will answer me a question, Mr. Courtier?”

“If I may, and can.”

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.

“We 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—who is she?”

“I don't think I quite grasp the situation,” murmured Courtier. “You

said—to marry him?”

Seeing that she had put out her hand, as if begging for the truth, he

added: “How can your brother marry her—she's married!”

“Oh!”

“I'd no idea you didn't know that much.”

“We thought there was a divorce.”

The expression of which mention has been made—that peculiar white-hot

sardonically jolly look—visited Courtier's face at once. “Hoist with

their own petard! The usual thing. Let a pretty woman live alone—the

tongues of men will do the rest.”

“It was not so bad as that,” said Barbara dryly; “they said she had

divorced her husband.”

Caught out thus characteristically riding past the hounds Courtier bit

his lips.

“You had better hear the story now. Her father was a country parson, and

a friend of my father's; so that I've known her from a child. Stephen

Lees Noel was his curate. It was a 'snap' marriage—she 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'd made an utter mistake.”

Barbara came a little closer.

“What was the man like?”

“Not bad in his way, but one of those narrow, conscientious pig-headed

fellows who make the most trying kind of husband—bone 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's

no better than a slave. She began to show the strain of it at last;

though she's 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's 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—at 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—I get

hot over this.” He was silent; then seeing her eyes fixed on him,

went on: “Her mother died when she was born, her father soon after her

marriage. She's 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's sorry for the poor devil, too, of course! They never see each

other; and, so far as I know, they don't correspond. That, Lady Barbara,

is the simple history.”

Barbara, said, “Thank you,” and turned away; and he heard her mutter:

“What a shame!”

But he could not tell whether it was Mrs. Noel's fate, or the husband's

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.' 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—this great tawny lily of a girl—ever 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: 'Verily 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.' 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's 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—as it were, her temple—rose 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.

“MY DEAR EUSTACE,

“The enclosed—however unwarranted and impudent—requires attention. But

we shall do nothing till you come back.

“Yours ever,

“WILLIAM SHROPTON.”

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's

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—for 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'clock 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—the 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—no 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—as Lady Casterley had shrewdly guessed—the 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 'sweet

woman—a phrase she detested—for there was in her a queer vein of gentle

cynicism. She 'saw' 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—sufficient 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's 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's feelings, and whose eyes always shone at the sight of flowers.

But in truth the smell of lavender—that scent carried on her husband's

handkerchief and clothes—still 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—not 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's 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's property in spirit, that she was almost glad that they should

assign him all the rest of her. But for Miltoun's 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's 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—and there were so many kinds of those,

besides the merely fashionable—she 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:

'Apropos 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.'

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:

“So you have come to breakfast. How nice of you!”

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:

“I love you.”

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:

“And I love you.”

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' heads, scenting, it seemed, the

honey in their hearts.

It has been said that Miltoun's 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—she, 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's hair. And then, seeing that

words, those dreaded things, were on his lips, she tried to kiss them

back. But they came:

“When will you marry me?”

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—her cynicism. Not content to

let her be, people's 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:

“It's true, I suppose?” And, at her silence, added: “I am sorry.”

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's 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's 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:

“I have made a foolish mistake, it seems. I believed you were free.”

Her lips just moved for the words to pass: “I thought you knew. I never,

dreamed you would want to marry me.”

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:

“I suppose I had got too used to knowing I was dead.”

“Is there no release?”

“None. We have neither of us done wrong; besides with him, marriage

is—for ever.”

“My God!”

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:

“I didn't know that you believed in release either.”

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's 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—the 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's

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:

“Well, Eustace!” as he might have spoken, meeting his nephew in the hall

of one of his London Clubs.

Miltoun, no less polite, murmured:

“Hope I haven't lost you anything.”

Lord Dennis shook his head, and laying his rod on the bank, said:

“Sit down and have a chat, old fellow. You don't fish, I think?”

He had not, in the least, missed the suffering behind Miltoun's mask;

his eyes were still good, and there was a little matter of some twenty

years' suffering of his own on account of a woman—ancient history

now—which 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.

“This place,” he said, “always reminds me of Mark Twain's writings—can't

tell why, unless it's the ever-greenness. I like the evergreen

philosophers, Twain and Meredith. There's no salvation except through

courage, though I never could stomach the 'strong man'—captain of his

soul, Henley and Nietzsche and that sort—goes against the grain with me.

What do you say, Eustace?”

“They meant well,” answered Miltoun, “but they protested too much.”

Lord Dennis moved his head in assent.

“To be captain of your soul!” continued Miltoun in a bitter voice; “it's

a pretty phrase!”

“Pretty enough,” murmured Lord Dennis.

Miltoun looked at him.

“And suitable to you,” he said.

“No, my dear,” Lord Dennis answered dryly, “a long way off that, thank

God!”

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.

“See that hawk?” 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—a symbol of freedom to men and

fishes.

Lord Dennis looked at his great-nephew. The boy—for what else was thirty

to seventy-six?—was taking it hard, whatever it might be, taking it very

hard! He was that sort—ran till he dropped. The worst kind to help—the

sort that made for trouble—that let things gnaw at them! And there

flashed before the old man's 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:

“You don't care to talk about it, I suppose?”

Miltoun shook his head, and again there was silence.

The buzzard hawk having seen them move, quivered his wings like a

moth's, 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:

“That fellow's risen twice; I believe he'd take a 'Wistman's treasure.'”

Extracting from his hat its latest fly, and binding it on, he began

softly to swish his line.

“I shall have him yet!” he muttered. But Miltoun had stolen away....

The further piece of information about Mrs. Noel, already known by

Barbara, and diffused by the 'Bucklandbury News', 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—in 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 'Least said, soonest mended' 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—what could be

more justifiable! And yet Miltoun's 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: “Poor Eustace!” and at once wrote off to her husband

to say that 'Anonyma' 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's speech—some of which he had heard. He looked at Courtier

meaningly, and after lunch said to him:

“Will you come round to my den?”

In that room, the old withdrawing-room of the Elizabethan wing—where

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's, 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:

“Fine thing—that! Only wants a soul.”

Miltoun nodded:

“Sit down,” he said.

Courtier sat down.

There followed one of those silences in which men whose spirits, though

different, have a certain bigness in common—can say so much to one

another:

At last Miltoun spoke:

“I 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!”

Not even Courtier himself could have put such whip-lash sting into the

word 'miserable.'

He answered:

“Oh! take no notice of that. Let them stew in their own juice. She won't

care.”

Miltoun listened, not moving a muscle of his face.

“Your friends here,” went on Courtier with a touch of contempt, “seem in

a flutter. Don't let them do anything, don't let them say a word. Treat

the thing as it deserves to be treated. It'll die.”

Miltoun, however, smiled.

“I'm not sure,” he said, “that the consequences will be as you think,

but I shall do as you say.”

“As for your candidature, any man with a spark of generosity in his soul

will rally to you because of it.”

“Possibly,” said Miltoun. “It will lose me the election, for all that.”

Then, dimly conscious that their last words had revealed the difference

of their temperaments and creeds, they stared at one another.

“No,” said Courtier, “I never will believe that people can be so mean!”

“Until they are.”

“Anyway, though we get at it in different ways, we agree.”

Miltoun leaned his elbow on the mantelpiece, and shading his face with

his hand, said:

“You know her story. Is there any way out of that, for her?”

On Courtier's face was the look which so often came when he was speaking

for one of his lost causes—as if the fumes from a fire in his heart had

mounted to his head.

“Only the way,” he answered calmly, “that I should take if I were you.”

“And that?”

“The law into your own hands.”

Miltoun unshaded his face. His gaze seemed to have to travel from an

immense distance before it reached Courtier. He answered:

“Yes, I thought you would say that.”

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:

“Are you asleep, Eusty?”

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's 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: “It's me! Babs!” 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's 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: “If you're going to ride you might take this note for

me over to old Haliday at Wippincott.” 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: “All right!”

Then, after glancing once or twice round the room, Miltoun went away.

He left her restless, divested of the cloak 'of course,' 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'clock, 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—as though stationed by the Wistful Master

himself—were 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—what 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—for 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 'Hardness,' 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 'Anonyma';

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 'hardness,' 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's

cottage; nor was it curiosity. It was a quite simple desire to squeeze

her hand.

'Anonyma' seemed taking her trouble as only those women who are no good

at self-assertion can take things—doing 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's faces, but at each other's 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's

smile seemed saying, and Barbara's 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' legs. But all the time, Barbara, though seemingly unconscious, was

noting with her smiling eyes, the tiny movement's, 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's 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:

“Are you going to do nothing? Aren't you going to try and free yourself?

If I were in your position, I would never rest till I'd made them free

me.”

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:

“I believe you are a fatalist.”

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 'milk-maids' and buttercups, she suffered from this strange

revelation of the strength of softness and passivity—as though she had

seen in the white figure of 'Anonyma,' 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—yet 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,—with 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—and 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:

“Grandpapa, Granny wants you. She's on the terrace; she's talking to Mr.

Courtier. I like him—he's a kind man. If I put my guinea-pig down, will

they bite it? Poor darling—they shan't! Isn't it a darling!”

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.

“Poor darlings, they want it—don't they? Grandpapa.”

“Yes.”

“Do you think the next puppies will be spotted quite all over?”

Continuing to twirl his moustache, Lord Valleys answered:

“I think it is not improbable, Ann.”

“Why do you like them spotted like that? Oh! they're kissing Sambo—I

must go!”

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's 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.

“It's easy, Lady Valleys, for those who have never been in the position

of a lonely woman, to blame her.”

Unaccustomed to be withstood, she had looked at him intently:

“I am the last person to be hard on a woman for conventional reasons.

But I think it showed lack of character.”

Courtier's reply had been almost rude.

“Plants are not equally robust, Lady Valleys. Some, as we know, are

actually sensitive.”

She had retorted with decision

“If you like to so dignify the simpler word 'weak'”

He had become very rigid at that, biting deeply into his moustache.

“What crimes are not committed under the sanctity of that creed

'survival of the fittest,' which suits the book of all you fortunate

people so well!”

Priding herself on her restraint, Lady Valleys answered:

“Ah! we must talk that out. On the face of them your words sound a

little unphilosophic, don't they?”

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:

“Perhaps after all we had better not talk it out;” and moving away, she

heard him answer: “In any case, I'm certain Audrey Noel never wilfully

kept your son in the dark; she's much too proud.”

Though rude, she could not help liking the way he stuck up for this

woman; and she threw back at him the words:

“You and I, Mr. Courtier, must have a good fight some day!”

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's affair; and, slipping her hand through his arm, Lady Valleys drew

him away from the house.

“I want to talk to you about Miltoun, Geoff.”

“H'm!” said Lord Valleys; “yes. The boy's looking worn. Good thing when

this election's over.”

“If he's beaten and hasn't something new and serious to concentrate

himself on, he'll fret his heart out over that woman.”

Lord Valleys meditated a little before replying.

“I don't think that, Gertrude. He's got plenty of spirit.”

“Of course! But it's a real passion. And, you know, he's not like most

boys, who'll take what they can.”

She said this rather wistfully.

“I'm sorry for the woman,” mused Lord Valleys; “I really am.”

“They say this rumour's done a lot of harm.”

“Our influence is strong enough to survive that.”

“It'll be a squeak; I wish I knew what he was going to do. Will you ask

him?”

“You're clearly the person to speak to him,” replied Lord Valleys. “I'm

no hand at that sort of thing.”

But Lady Valleys, with genuine discomfort, murmured:

“My dear, I'm so nervous with Eustace. When he puts on that smile of his

I'm done for, at once.”

“This is obviously a woman's business; nobody like a mother.”

“If it were only one of the others,” muttered Lady Valleys: “Eustace has

that queer way of making you feel lumpy.”

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.

“Well, I'll do it, if I must,” sighed Lady Valleys.

When after breakfast she entered Miltoun's 'den,' 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 'old Miltoun,' 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—impossible to say exactly where—it 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:

“I'm dreadfully sorry about this affair, dear boy. Your father told me

of your talk with him. Try not to take it too hard.”

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:

“Surely it's not worth it.”

Miltoun heard her with his peculiar look, as of a man peering through a

vizor. Then smiling, he said:

“Thank you;” 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'clock 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—all 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—often 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: “Not a bit; did a lot of thinking.”

With Miltoun's 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's

trouble was very sudden.

“Old man, I hope you're going to cut your losses.”

The words were followed by undisturbed silence: But passing Mrs. Noel's

cottage Miltoun said:

“Take my horse on; I want to go in here.”....

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's 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: “You're wet!”

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—he had to speak

first.

“Forgive me for coming; something must be settled. This—rumour——”

“Oh! that!” she said. “Is there anything I can do to stop the harm to

you?”

It was the turn of Miltoun's lips to curl. “God! no; let them talk!”

Their eyes had come together now, and, once together, seemed unable to

part.

Mrs. Noel said at last:

“Will you ever forgive me?”

“What for—it was my fault.”

“No; I should have known you better.”

The depth of meaning in those words—the 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 'bear it

out even to the edge of doom'—made Miltoun wince away.

“It is not from fear—believe that, anyway.”

“I do.”

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:

“There is only to say good-bye, then.”

At those clear words spoken by lips which, though just smiling, failed

so utterly to hide his misery, Mrs. Noel's 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's 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—which faded somewhat when he began to talk. It was not so much

the manner of his speech—with its rapid slang, and its way of turning

everything to a jest—as 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—that peculiar, extraordinarily English habit, so

powerful and beguiling that it becomes a second nature stronger than

the first—of 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—a 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—a 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—it 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—in the case of another 'bowled him middle stump. Though

so deeply smitten, he had not yet asked her to marry him—had 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's 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 'an extremist' into

the bargain, and an extremist always affected the centre of Harbinger's

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's 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's eye

a gleam, to catch in his voice a tone, as if he were thinking: “My young

friend, your soup is cold!”

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's 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,—and the perception of a sound with which he connected carrots.

When she unlatched his door, and said “Hal,” he at once went towards his

manger, to show his independence, but when she said: “Oh! very well!”

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:

“Lady Babs!”

The tone of his voice must have been as strange as it sounded to

himself, for Barbara spun round.

“Yes?”

“How long am I going on like this?”

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:

“You know what I feel; don't be cruel to me!”

She did not pull away her hand; it was as if she had not thought of it.

“I am not a bit cruel.”

Looking up, he saw her smiling.

“Then—Babs!”

His face was close to hers, but Barbara did not shrink back. She just

shook her head; and Harbinger flushed up.

“Why?” he asked; and as though the enormous injustice of that rejecting

gesture had suddenly struck him, he dropped her hand.

“Why?” 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's hair and clothes. And rather miserably, he said for the third

time:

“Why?”

But folding her hands away behind her back she answered gently:

“My dear, how should I know why?”

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—Harbinger! 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.

“I shall not give you up,” he muttered.

Barbara's answer was a smile, faintly curious, compassionate, yet almost

grateful, as if she had said:

“Thank you—who knows?”

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—a matter of three days—had 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—the still moment—but 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's 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:

“'Thus will I sit and sing, with love in my arms; watching our two herds

mingle together, and below us the far, divine, cerulean sea.'”

And, after another silence, looking steadily in Barbara's face, he

added:

“Lady 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:”

Under that speech, so strangely compounded of irony and fervour, Barbara

sat very still, with glowing cheeks.

“Yes,” said Courtier, “only an immortal must embrace a goddess. Outside

the purlieus of Authority I shall sit cross-legged, and prostrate myself

three times a day.”

But Barbara answered nothing.

“In the early morning,” went on Courtier, “leaving 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.”

He stopped, for Barbara's lips were moving.

“Don't hurt me, please.”

Courtier leaned over, took her hand, and put it to his lips. “We will

now ride on....”

That night at dinner Lord Dennis, seated opposite his great-niece, was

struck by her appearance.

“A very beautiful child,” he thought, “a most lovely young creature!”

She was placed between Courtier and Harbinger. And the old man's

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—might 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—no

doubt—that 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—swelled 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 'little' 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's 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—young 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—the sort that rode slap-bang at everything!

All very well—but not for Babs! She was not like the glorious

Garibaldi's glorious Anita! It was truly characteristic of Lord

Dennis—and indeed of other people—that 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't 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—whichever 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—and 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:

“My God, to-morrow I'll be off!”

But every morning when he met her at breakfast his thought was precisely

the same, and there were moments when he caught himself wondering: “Am

I falling under the spell of this existence—am I getting soft?” He

recognized as never before that the peculiar artificial 'hardness' 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—a

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's 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.

“Are you going? I can come as, far as the gate.” “That is lucky.”

“Yes. Is that all your luggage?”

“I'm afraid it is.”

“Oh! It's quite a lot, really, isn't it?”

“As much as I deserve.”

“Of course you don't have to take guinea-pigs about with you?”

“Not as a rule.”

“I always do. There's great-Granny!”

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.

“So you are going! I am glad of that, though you quite understand that I

like you personally.”

“Quite!”

Her eyes gleamed maliciously.

“Men who laugh like you are dangerous, as I've told you before!”

Then, with great gravity; she added

“My 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.”

Courtier, bowing over her hand, answered:

“He will be lucky.”

The little old lady regarded him unflinchingly.

“He will, sir. Good-bye!”

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:

“I hope you'll 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's young. I must go now. Good-bye! Hallo,

Susie!”

Courtier saw her slide away, and join the little pale adoring figure of

the lodge-keeper's 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's laugh,

she could not have, devised one more effectual, for there was deep

down in him all a wanderer's very real distrust, amounting almost

to contempt, of people so settled and done for; as aristocrats or

bourgeois, and all a man of action's 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's,

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—the hand of a woman never quite idle—he 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:

“Don't let them think you're down;” and, squeezing her hand hard: “Why

should you be wasted like this? It's a sin and shame!”

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's invitation to the embrace which gave life birth.

“I'm clearing out, myself,” he said: “You and I, you know, are not good

for these people. No birds of freedom allowed!”

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.

“Lady Barbara, sir!”

Following the man's eyes, Courtier saw against the sky-line on the for

above Ashman's 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:

“I'm glad of this chance.”

Then suddenly looking up, he found her strangely pale and quivering.

“I shall see you in London!” 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:

“Faster, please, Frith!”....

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's 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's 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—-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—the eternal foe to all the little fat 'facts,' who,

dressed up in blue and yellow, were swaggering and staggering, calling

each other names, wiping each other's eyes, blooding each other's 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 'Chilcox for Bucklandbury'; 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's head, for though the sharpest lookout was kept

for any signs of the philosophic eye, it was only to be found—outside

Courtier—in 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 'facts' 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:

“NEW COMPLICATIONS. DANGER NOT PAST. VOTE FOR MILTOUN AND THE

GOVERNMENT, AND SAVE THE EMPIRE.”

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, 'New

complications,' which he had read that morning? No more than the yellows

could help a yellow journal printing the words 'Lord Miltoun's Evening

Adventure.' 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't,

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—the 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's 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.

“That last poster of yours!” Courtier began, at once.

“I'm having it withdrawn.”

“It's done the trick—congratulations—you'll get in!”

“I knew nothing of it.”

“My dear fellow, I didn't suppose you did.”

“When there is a desert, Courtier, between a man and the sacred city,

he doesn't renounce his journey because he has to wash in dirty water on

the way: The mob—how I loathe it!”

There was such pent-up fury in those words as to astonish even one whose

life had been passed in conflict with majorities.

“I hate its mean stupidities, I hate the sound of its voice, and the

look on its face—it's so ugly, it's 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.”

To this strange outburst, Courtier at first made no reply.

“You've been working too hard,” he said at last, “you're off your

balance. After all, the mob's made up of men like you and me.”

“No, Courtier, the mob is not made up of men like you and me. If it were

it would not be the mob.”

“It looks,” Courtier answered gravely, “as if you had no business in

this galley. I've always steered clear of it myself.”

“You follow your feelings. I have not that happiness.”

So saying, Miltoun turned to the door.

Courtier's voice pursued him earnestly.

“Drop your politics—if you feel like this about them; don't waste your

life following whatever it is you follow; don't waste hers!”

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—expression 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:

“'Tis anxious work—I wouldn't ha' missed this for anything in the

world.”

“Fine, eh?” answered Courtier.

“Aye,” said the old man, “'tis fine. I've not seen the like o' this

since the great year—forty-eight. There they are—the aristocrats!”

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.

“You wouldn't remember forty-eight, I suppose. There was a feeling

in the people then—we would ha' died for things in those days. I'm

eighty-four,” and he held his shaking hand up to his breast, “but the

spirit's alive here yet! God send the Radical gets in!” 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: “Way down upon the Swanee ribber.” The tune floated forth,

ceased, spurted up once more, and died.

Then, in the very centre of the square a stentorian baritone roared

forth: “Should auld acquaintance be forgot!”

The song swelled, till every kind of voice, from treble to the old

Chartist's 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's 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 “God save our gracious King!” 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.

“This,” thought Courtier, “is religion!”

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: “Up; Chilcox!” A huge: “Husill” 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.

“Ladies and gentlemen. Result of the Poll:

“Miltoun Four thousand eight hundred and ninety-eight. Chilcox Four

thousand eight hundred and two.”

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's, 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'clock 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 'go'; 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—with blinds drawn—rather 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: “Hallo!” 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:

“Is this where you sit, Grandpapa?”

“It is.”

“It's nice, isn't it, Granny? Where does the stone staircase go to?”

“To the roof of the tower, Ann.”

“Oh! I have to give a message, so I must go now.”

“Sorry to lose you.”

“Yes; good-bye!”

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's 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—he had answered: “If I didn't, some plutocrat or company would—or,

worse still, the State!” 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:

“What's the matter, Geoff?”

Lord Valleys rose, went to the hearth, deliberately tapped out his pipe,

then held out to her the sheet of paper.

“That quarry! Nothing for it—must go!”

Lady Valleys' face changed.

“Oh, no! It will mean such dreadful distress.”

Lord Valleys stared at his nails. “It's putting a drag on the whole

estate,” he said.

“I know, but how could we face the people—I should never be able to go

down there. And most of them have such enormous families.”

Since Lord Valleys continued to bend on his nails that slow,

thought-forming stare, she went on earnestly:

“Rather than that I'd make sacrifices. I'd sooner Pendridny were let

than throw all those people out of work. I suppose it would let.”

“Let? Best woodcock shooting in the world.”

Lady Valleys, pursuing her thoughts, went on:

“In time we might get the people drafted into other things. Have you

consulted Miltoun?”

“No,” said Lord Valleys shortly, “and don't mean to—he's too

unpractical.”

“He always seems to know what he wants very well.”

“I tell you,” repeated Lord Valleys, “Miltoun's no good in a matter of

this sort—he and his ideas throw back to the Middle Ages.”

Lady Valleys went closer, and took him by the lapels of his collar.

“Geoff-really, to please me; some other way!”

Lord Valleys frowned, staring at her for some time; and at last

answered:

“To please you—I'll leave it over another year.”

“You think that's better than letting?”

“I don't like the thought of some outsider there. Time enough to come to

that if we must. Take it as my Christmas present.”

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:

“I came about Babs. I don't know what to make of her since we came up.

She's not putting her heart into things.”

Lord Valleys answered almost sulkily:

“It's the heat probably—or Claud Harbinger.” In spite of his easy-going

parentalism, he disliked the thought of losing the child whom he so

affectionately admired.

“Ah!” said Lady Valleys slowly, “I'm not so sure.”

“How do you mean?”

“There's something queer about her. I'm by no means certain she hasn't

got some sort of feeling for that Mr. Courtier.”

“What!” said Lord Valleys, growing most unphilosophically red.

“Exactly!”

“Confound it, Gertrude, Miltoun's business was quite enough for one

year.”

“For twenty,” murmured Lady Valleys. “I'm watching her. He's going to

Persia, they say.”

“And leaving his bones there, I hope,” muttered Lord Valleys. “Really,

it's too much. I should think you're all wrong, though.”

Lady Valleys raised her eyebrows. Men were very queer about such things!

Very queer and worse than helpless!

“Well,” she said, “I must go to my meeting. I'll take her, and see if I

can get at something,” 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—National Expansion! Her motto, and

she intended if possible to make it the motto of the League, was:

'De l'audace, et encore de l'audace!' It was a question of the full

realization of the nation. She had a true, and in a sense touching

belief in 'the flag,' apart from what it might cover. It was her

idealism. “You may talk,” she would say, “as 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's a matter of sentiment. We must expand!”

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.