s round collar; and with the wild thought that he
was going to tear it off, she cried: "Don't!"

"You!" he said. "You! But--"

Noel turned away from him to the window: She stood looking out, but saw
nothing whatever.

"I don't want it hidden," she said without turning round, "I want every
one to know. It's stupid as it is--stupid!" and she stamped her foot.
"Can't you see how stupid it is--everybody's mouth falling open!"

He uttered a little sound which had pain in it, and she felt a real pang
of compunction. He had gripped the back of a chair; his face had lost
its heaviness. A dull flush coloured his cheeks. Noel had a feeling, as
if she had been convicted of treachery. It was his silence, the curious
look of an impersonal pain beyond power of words; she felt in him
something much deeper than mere disapproval--something which echoed
within herself. She walked quickly past him and escaped. She ran
upstairs and threw herself on her bed. He was nothing: it was not that!
It was in herself, the awful feeling, for the first time developed and
poignant, that she had betrayed her caste, forfeited the right to be
thought a lady, betrayed her secret reserve and refinement, repaid with
black ingratitude the love lavished on her up bringing, by behaving like
any uncared-for common girl. She had never felt this before--not even
when Gratian first heard of it, and they had stood one at each end of the
hearth, unable to speak. Then she still had her passion, and her grief
for the dead. That was gone now as if it had never been; and she had no
defence, nothing between her and this crushing humiliation and chagrin.
She had been mad! She must have been mad! The Belgian Barra was right:
"All a little mad" in this "forcing-house" of a war! She buried her face
deep in the pillow, till it almost stopped her power of breathing; her
head and cheeks and ears seemed to be on fire. If only he had shown
disgust, done something which roused her temper, her sense of justice,
her feeling that Fate had been too cruel to her; but he had just stood
there, bewilderment incarnate, like a creature with some very deep
illusion shattered. It was horrible! Then, feeling that she could not
stay still, must walk, run, get away somehow from this feeling of
treachery and betrayal, she sprang up. All was quiet below, and she
slipped downstairs and out, speeding along with no knowledge of
direction, taking the way she had taken day after d