ic drowsily
accompanying their voices, the flowers drowsily filling the room with
scent; and when Courtier left, his heart was sore. She had not spoken of
herself at all, but had talked nearly all the time of Barbara, praising
her beauty and high spirit; growing pale once or twice, and evidently
drinking in with secret avidity every allusion to Miltoun. Clearly, her
feelings had not changed, though she would not show them! Courtier's
pity for her became well-nigh violent.

It was in such a mood, mingled with very different feelings, that he
donned evening clothes and set out to attend the last gathering of the
season at Valleys House, a function which, held so late in July, was
perforce almost perfectly political.

Mounting the wide and shining staircase, that had so often baffled the
arithmetic of little Ann, he was reminded of a picture entitled 'The
Steps to Heaven' in his nursery four-and-thirty years before. At the top
of this staircase, and surrounded by acquaintances, he came on Harbinger,
who nodded curtly. The young man's handsome face and figure appeared to
Courtier's jaundiced eye more obviously successful and complacent than
ever; so that he passed him by sardonically, and manoeuvred his way
towards Lady Valleys, whom he could perceive stationed, like a general,
in a little cleared space, where to and fro flowed constant streams of
people, like the rays of a star. She was looking her very best, going
well with great and highly-polished spaces; and she greeted Courtier with
a special cordiality of tone, which had in it, besides kindness towards
one who must be feeling a strange bird, a certain diplomatic quality,
compounded of desire, as it were, to 'warn him off,' and fear of saying
something that might irritate and make him more dangerous. She had heard,
she said, that he was bound for Persia; she hoped he was not going to try
and make things more difficult there; then with the words: "So good of
you to have come!" she became once more the centre of her battlefield.

Perceiving that he was finished with, Courtier stood back against a wall
and watched. Thus isolated, he was like a solitary cuckoo contemplating
the gyrations of a flock of rooks. Their motions seemed a little
meaningless to one so far removed from all the fetishes and shibboleths
of Westminster. He heard them discussing Miltoun's speech, the real
significance of which apparently had only just been grasped. The words
'doctrinaire,' '