could
be arranged. People spoke of it already as an illicit relationship; well
then, let people have what they had invented. If the worst came to the
worst, this was not the only constituency in England; and a dissolution
could not be far off. Better anything than a marriage which would
handicap him all his life! But would it be so great a handicap?
After all, beauty counted for much! If only her story were not too
conspicuous! But what was her story? Not to know it was absurd! That was
the worst of people who were not in Society, it was so difficult to find
out! And there rose in her that almost brutal resentment, which ferments
very rapidly in those who from their youth up have been hedged round
with the belief that they and they alone are the whole of the world. In
this mood Lady Valleys passed the letter to her daughters. They read,
and in turn handed it to Bertie, who in silence returned it to his
mother.

But that evening, in the billiard-room, having manoeuvred to get him to
herself, Barbara said to Courtier:

"I wonder if you will answer me a question, Mr. Courtier?"

"If I may, and can."

Her low-cut dress was of yew-green, with, little threads of
flame-colour, matching her hair, so that there was about her a splendour
of darkness and whiteness and gold, almost dazzling; and she stood very
still, leaning back against the lighter green of the billiard-table,
grasping its edge so tightly that the smooth strong backs of her hands
quivered.

"We have just heard that Miltoun is going to ask Mrs. Noel to marry him.
People are never mysterious, are they, without good reason? I wanted you
to tell me--who is she?"

"I don't think I quite grasp the situation," murmured Courtier. "You
said--to marry him?"

Seeing that she had put out her hand, as if begging for the truth, he
added: "How can your brother marry her--she's married!"

"Oh!"

"I'd no idea you didn't know that much."

"We thought there was a divorce."

The expression of which mention has been made--that peculiar white-hot
sardonically jolly look--visited Courtier's face at once. "Hoist with
their own petard! The usual thing. Let a pretty woman live alone--the
tongues of men will do the rest."

"It was not so bad as that," said Barbara dryly; "they said she had
divorced her husband."

Caught out thus characteristically riding past the hounds Courtier bit
his lips.

"You had better hear the story now. Her father was a country parson, and
a f