pretext sufficed:

It was not until the sixth day, when the crisis was well past and Miltoun
quite free from fever, that she again went down to Nettlefold.

On arriving she at once sought out her mother, whom she found in her
bedroom, resting. It had been very hot at Goodwood.

Barbara was not afraid of her--she was not, indeed, afraid of anyone,
except Miltoun, and in some strange way, a little perhaps of Courtier;
yet, when the maid had gone, she did not at once begin her tale. Lady
Valleys, who at Goodwood had just heard details of a Society scandal,
began a carefully expurgated account of it suitable to her daughter's
ears--for some account she felt she must give to somebody.

"Mother," said Barbara suddenly, "Eustace has been ill. He's out of
danger now, and going on all right." Then, looking hard at the
bewildered lady, she added: "Mrs. Noel is nursing him."

The past tense in which illness had been mentioned, checking at the first
moment any rush of panic in Lady Valleys, left her confused by the
situation conjured up in Barbara's last words. Instead of feeding that
part of man which loves a scandal, she was being fed, always an
unenviable sensation. A woman did not nurse a man under such
circumstances without being everything to him, in the world's eyes. Her
daughter went on:

"I took her to him. It seemed the only thing to do--since it's all
through fretting for her. Nobody knows, of course, except the doctor,
and--Stacey."

"Heavens!" muttered Lady Valleys.

"It has saved him."

The mother instinct in Lady Valleys took sudden fright. "Are you telling
me the truth, Babs? Is he really out of danger? How wrong of you not to
let me know before?"

But Barbara did not flinch; and her mother relapsed into rumination.

"Stacey is a cat!" she said suddenly. The expurgated details of the
scandal she had been retailing to her daughter had included the usual
maid. She could not find it in her to enjoy the irony of this
coincidence. Then, seeing Barbara smile, she said tartly:

"I fail to see the joke."

"Only that I thought you'd enjoy my throwing Stacey in, dear."

"What! You mean she doesn't know?"

"Not a word."

Lady Valleys smiled.

"What a little wretch you are, Babs!" Maliciously she added: "Claud and
his mother are coming over from Whitewater, with Bertie and Lily
Malvezin, you'd better go and dress;" and her eyes searched her
daughter's so shrewdly, that a flush rose to the