ce slowly working up towards the surface.

"I said: 'Good, isn't it?' Mr. Courtier."

"I heard you."

"And you were pleased to answer?"

"Nothing."

"With the civility which might be expected of your habits."

Coldly disdainful, Courtier answered:

"If you want to say that sort of thing, please choose a place where I
can reply to you," and turned abruptly on his heel.

But he ground his teeth as he made his way out into the street.

In Hyde Park the grass was parched and dewless under a sky whose stars
were veiled by the heat and dust haze. Never had Courtier so bitterly
wanted the sky's consolation--the blessed sense of insignificance in
the face of the night's dark beauty, which, dwarfing all petty rage
and hunger, made men part of its majesty, exalted them to a sense of
greatness.

CHAPTER VII

It was past four o'clock the following day when Barbara issued from
Valleys House on foot; clad in a pale buff frock, chosen for quietness,
she attracted every eye. Very soon entering a taxi-cab, she drove to
the Temple, stopped at the Strand entrance, and walked down the little
narrow lane into the heart of the Law. Its votaries were hurrying back
from the Courts, streaming up from their Chambers for tea, or escaping
desperately to Lord's or the Park--young votaries, unbound as yet by the
fascination of fame or fees. And each, as he passed, looked at Barbara,
with his fingers itching to remove his hat, and a feeling that this was
She. After a day spent amongst precedents and practice, after six hours
at least of trying to discover what chance A had of standing on his
rights, or B had of preventing him, it was difficult to feel otherwise
about that calm apparition--like a golden slim tree walking. One of
them, asked by her the way to Miltoun's staircase, preceded her with shy
ceremony, and when she had vanished up those dusty stairs, lingered on,
hoping that she might find her visitee out, and be obliged to return
and ask him the way back. But she did not come, and he went sadly away,
disturbed to the very bottom of all that he owned in fee simple.

In fact, no one answered Barbara's knock, and discovering that the door
yielded, she walked through the lobby past the clerk's den, converted
to a kitchen, into the sitting-room. It was empty. She had never been to
Miltoun's rooms before, and she stared about her curiously. Since he did
not practise, much of the proper gear was absent. The room indeed had a
wor