dy Valleys pushed back her plate, and rose:

"Oh, well!" she said, "I've finished."

Lord Valleys also got up, and they went out together, leaving Barbara,
who had risen, looking doubtfully at the door.

Lord Valleys had recently been told of the nursing episode, and had
received the news with the dubious air of one hearing something about an
eccentric person, which, heard about anyone else, could have had but one
significance. If Eustace had been a normal young man his father would
have shrugged his shoulder's, and thought: "Oh, well! There it is!" As
it was, he had literally not known what to think.

And now, crossing the saloon which intervened between the dining-room and
the study, he said to his wife uneasily:

"Is it this woman again, Gertrude--or what?"

Lady Valleys answered with a shrug:

"Goodness knows, my dear."

Miltoun was standing in the embrasure of a window above the terrace. He
looked well, and his greeting was the same as usual.

"Well, my dear fellow," said Lord Valleys, "you're all right again
evidently--what's the news?"

"Only that I've decided to resign my seat."

Lord Valleys stared.

"What on earth for?"

But Lady Valleys, with the greater quickness of women, divining already
something of the reason, had flushed a deep pink.

"Nonsense, my dear," she said; "it can't possibly be necessary, even
if----" Recovering herself, she added dryly:

"Give us some reason."

"The reason is simply that I've joined my life to Mrs. Noel's, and I
can't go on as I am, living a lie. If it were known I should obviously
have to resign at once."

"Good God!" exclaimed Lord Valleys.

Lady Valleys made a rapid movement. In the face of what she felt to be a
really serious crisis between these two utterly different creatures of
the other sex, her husband and her son, she had dropped her mask and
become a genuine woman. Unconsciously both men felt this change, and in
speaking, turned towards her.

"I can't argue it," said Miltoun; "I consider myself bound in honour."

"And then?" she asked.

Lord Valleys, with a note of real feeling, interjected:

"By Heaven! I did think you put your country above your private
affairs."

"Geoff!" said Lady Valleys.

But Lord Valleys went on:

"No, Eustace, I'm out of touch with your view of things altogether. I
don't even begin to understand it."

"That is true," said Miltoun.

"Listen to me, both of you!" said Lady Valleys: "You two are altoget