er
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 d