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 u