rds; the memory of the two figures with joined hands on the
balcony above the election crowd; all his latent jealousy of this
handsome young Colossus, his animus against one whom he could, as it
were, smell out to be always fighting on the winning side; all his
consciousness too of what a lost cause his own was, his doubt whether he
were honourable to look on it as a cause at all, flared up in Courtier,
so that his answer was a stare. On Harbinger's face, too, there had come
a look of stubborn violence slowly working up towards the surface.

"I said: 'Good, isn't it?' Mr. Courtier."

"I heard you."

"And you were pleased to answer?"

"Nothing."

"With the civility which might be expected of your habits."

Coldly disdainful, Courtier answered:

"If you want to say that sort of thing, please choose a place where I can
reply to you," and turned abruptly on his heel.

But he ground his teeth as he made his way out into the street.

In Hyde Park the grass was parched and dewless under a sky whose stars
were veiled by the heat and dust haze. Never had Courtier so bitterly
wanted the sky's consolation--the blessed sense of insignificance in the
face of the night's dark beauty, which, dwarfing all petty rage and
hunger, made men part of its majesty, exalted them to a sense of
greatness.

CHAPTER VII

It was past four o'clock the following day when Barbara issued from
Valleys House on foot; clad in a pale buff frock, chosen for quietness,
she attracted every eye. Very soon entering a taxi-cab, she drove to the
Temple, stopped at the Strand entrance, and walked down the little narrow
lane into the heart of the Law. Its votaries were hurrying back from the
Courts, streaming up from their Chambers for tea, or escaping desperately
to Lord's or the Park--young votaries, unbound as yet by the fascination
of fame or fees. And each, as he passed, looked at Barbara, with his
fingers itching to remove his hat, and a feeling that this was She.
After a day spent amongst precedents and practice, after six hours at
least of trying to discover what chance A had of standing on his rights,
or B had of preventing him, it was difficult to feel otherwise about that
calm apparition--like a golden slim tree walking. One of them, asked by
her the way to Miltoun's staircase, preceded her with shy ceremony, and
when she had vanished up those dusty stairs, lingered on, hoping that she
might find her visitee out, and be obliged to