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