t that he could
not stand the atmosphere she lived in for a week, and that she was
utterly unsuited for any atmosphere that he could give her; to say
nothing of the unlikelihood that he could flutter the pulses of one half
his age!

A voice, behind him said: "Mr. Courtier!"

He turned, and there was Barbara.

"I want to talk to you about something serious: Will you come into the
picture gallery?"

When at last they were close to a family group of Georgian Caradocs, and
could as it were shut out the throng sufficiently for private speech,
she began:

"Miltoun's so horribly unhappy; I don't know what to do for him: He's
making himself ill!"

And she suddenly looked up, in Courtier's face. She seemed to him very
young, and touching, at that moment. Her eyes had a gleam of faith in
them, like a child's eyes; as if she relied on him to straighten out
this tangle, to tell her not only about Miltoun's trouble, but about all
life, its meaning, and the secret of its happiness: And he said gently:

"What can I do? Mrs. Noel is in Town. But that's no good, unless--" Not
knowing how to finish this sentence; he was silent.

"I wish I were Miltoun," she muttered.

At that quaint saying, Courtier was hard put to it not to take hold of
the hands so close to him. This flash of rebellion in her had quickened
all his blood. But she seemed to have seen what had passed in him, for
her next speech was chilly.

"It's no good; stupid of me to be worrying you."

"It is quite impossible for you to worry me."

Her eyes lifted suddenly from her glove, and looked straight into his.

"Are you really going to Persia?"

"Yes."

"But I don't want you to, not yet!" and turning suddenly, she left him.

Strangely disturbed, Courtier remained motionless, consulting the grave
stare of the group of Georgian Caradocs.

A voice said:

"Good painting, isn't it?"

Behind him was Lord Harbinger. And once more the memory of Lady
Casterley's words; the memory of the two figures with joined hands on
the balcony above the election crowd; all his latent jealousy of this
handsome young Colossus, his animus against one whom he could, as it
were, smell out to be always fighting on the winning side; all his
consciousness too of what a lost cause his own was, his doubt whether he
were honourable to look on it as a cause at all, flared up in Courtier,
so that his answer was a stare. On Harbinger's face, too, there had come
a look of stubborn violen