She too, as well as this
great thing below her, seemed to have shed her body, to be emancipated
from every barrier-floating deliciously identified with air. She seemed
to be one with the enfranchised spirit of the city, drowned in perception
of its beauty. Then all that feeling went, and left her frowning,
shivering, though the wind from the West was warm. Her whole adventure of
coming up here seemed bizarre, ridiculous. Very stealthily she crept
down, and had reached once more the door into 'the picture gallery, when
she heard her mother's voice say in amazement: "That you, Babs?" And
turning, saw her coming from the doorway of the sanctum.

Of a sudden very cool, with all her faculties about her, Barbara smiled,
and stood looking at Lady Valleys, who said with hesitation:

"Come in here, dear, a minute, will you?"

In that room resorted to for comfort, Lord Valleys was standing with his
back to the hearth, and an expression on his face that wavered between
vexation and decision. The doubt in Agatha's mind whether she should
tell or no, had been terribly resolved by little Ann, who in a pause of
conversation had announced: "We saw Auntie Babs and Mr. Courtier in
Gustard's, but we didn't speak to them."

Upset by the events of the afternoon, Lady Valleys had not shown her
usual 'savoir faire'. She had told her husband. A meeting of this sort
in a shop celebrated for little save its wedding cakes was in a sense of
no importance; but, being disturbed already by the news of Miltoun, it
seemed to them both nothing less than sinister, as though the heavens
were in league for the demolition of their house. To Lord Valleys it was
peculiarly mortifying, because of his real admiration for his daughter,
and because he had paid so little attention to his wife's warning of some
weeks back. In consultation, however, they had only succeeded in
deciding that Lady Valleys should talk with her. Though without much
spiritual insight, they had, each of them, a certain cool judgment; and
were fully alive to the danger of thwarting Barbara. This had not
prevented Lord Valleys from expressing himself strongly on the
'confounded unscrupulousness of that fellow,' and secretly forming his
own plan for dealing with this matter. Lady Valleys, more deeply
conversant with her daughter's nature, and by reason of femininity more
lenient towards the other sex, had not tried to excuse Courtier, but had
thought privately: 'Babs is rather