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 Cas