to him, as though he were
bored with having to delay and temporize, he added:

"Do you know, I doubt whether it's wise to make appointments in
confectioner's shops when Ann is in London."

The dangerous little gleam in Barbara's eyes escaped his vision but not
that of Lady Valleys, who said at once:

"No doubt you had the best of reasons, my dear."

Barbara curled her lip. Had it not been for the scene they had been
through that day with Miltoun, and for their very real anxiety, both
would have seen, then, that while their daughter was in this mood, least
said was soonest mended. But their nerves were not quite within control;
and with more than a touch of impatience Lord Valleys ejaculated:

"It doesn't appear to you, I suppose, to require any explanation?"

Barbara answered:

"No."

"Ah!" said Lord Valleys: "I see. An explanation can be had no doubt
from the gentleman whose sense of proportion was such as to cause him to
suggest such a thing."

"He did not suggest it. I did."

Lord Valleys' eyebrows rose still higher.

"Indeed!" he said.

"Geoffrey!" murmured Lady Valleys, "I thought I was to talk to Babs."

"It would no doubt be wiser."

In Barbara, thus for the first time in her life seriously reprimanded,
there was at work the most peculiar sensation she had ever felt, as
if something were scraping her very skin--a sick, and at the same time
devilish, feeling. At that moment she could have struck her father dead.
But she showed nothing, having lowered the lids of her eyes.

"Anything else?" she said.

Lord Valleys' jaw had become suddenly more prominent.

"As a sequel to your share in Miltoun's business, it is peculiarly
entrancing."

"My dear," broke in Lady Valleys very suddenly, "Babs will tell me. It's
nothing, of course."

Barbara's calm voice said again:

"Anything else?"

The repetition of this phrase in that maddening, cool voice almost broke
down her father's sorely tried control.

"Nothing from you," he said with deadly coldness. "I shall have the
honour of telling this gentleman what I think of him."

At those words Barbara drew herself together, and turned her eyes from
one face to the other.

Under that gaze, which for all its cool hardness, was so furiously
alive, neither Lord nor Lady Valleys could keep quite still. It was as
if she had stripped from them the well-bred mask of those whose spirits,
by long unquestioning acceptance of themselves, have become inelastic,