She knew those were reckless words, nor cared very much what they meant;
but she knew the revolt in them would move him. She saw from his face
that it had; and after a little pause, said:

"Happiness is the great thing," and with soft, wicked slowness: "Isn't
it, Mr. Courtier?"

But all the cheeriness had gone out of his face, which had grown almost
pale. He lifted his hand, and let it drop. Then she felt sorry. It was
just as if he had asked her to spare him.

"As to that," he said: "The rough, unfortunately, has to be taken with
the smooth. But life's frightfully jolly sometimes."

"As now?"

He looked at her with firm gravity, and answered

"As now."

A sense of utter mortification seized on Barbara. He was too strong for
her--he was quixotic--he was hateful! And, determined not to show a
sign, to be at least as strong as he, she said calmly:

"Now I think I'll have that cab!"

When she was in the cab, and he was standing with his hat lifted, she
looked at him in the way that women can, so that he did not realize that
she had looked.

CHAPTER XIII

When Miltoun came to thank her, Audrey Noel was waiting in the middle of
the room, dressed in white, her lips smiling, her dark eyes smiling,
still as a flower on a windless day.

In that first look passing between them, they forgot everything but
happiness. Swallows, on the first day of summer, in their discovery of
the bland air, can neither remember that cold winds blow, nor imagine the
death of sunlight on their feathers, and, flitting hour after hour over
the golden fields, seem no longer birds, but just the breathing of a new
season--swallows were no more forgetful of misfortune than were those
two. His gaze was as still as her very self; her look at him had in at
the quietude of all emotion.

When they' sat down to talk it was as if they had gone back to those days
at Monkland, when he had come to her so often to discuss everything in
heaven and earth. And yet, over that tranquil eager drinking--in of each
other's presence, hovered a sort of awe. It was the mood of morning
before the sun has soared. The dew-grey cobwebs enwrapped the flowers of
their hearts--yet every prisoned flower could be seen. And he and she
seemed looking through that web at the colour and the deep-down forms
enshrouded so jealously; each feared too much to unveil the other's
heart. They were like lovers who, rambling in a shy wood, never dare
stay thei