ency of his habits of
life and thought. And there was apparent about all his movements that
peculiar unconsciousness of his surroundings which comes to those who
live a great deal in the public eye, have the material machinery of
existence placed exactly to their hands, and never need to consider what
others think of them. Taking his seat, and still perusing the paper,
he at once began to eat what was put before him; then noticing that his
eldest daughter had come in and was sitting down beside him, he said:

"Bore having to go up in such weather!"

"Is it a Cabinet meeting?"

"Yes. This confounded business of the balloons." But the rather anxious
dark eyes of Agatha's delicate narrow face were taking in the details of
a tray for keeping dishes warm on a sideboard, and she was thinking:
"I believe that would be better than the ones I've got, after all. If
William would only say whether he really likes these large trays better
than single hot-water dishes!" She contrived how-ever to ask in her
gentle voice--for all her words and movements were gentle, even a little
timid, till anything appeared to threaten the welfare of her husband or
children:

"Do you think this war scare good for Eustace's prospects, Father?"

But her father did not answer; he was greeting a new-comer, a tall,
fine-looking young man, with dark hair and a fair moustache, between
whom and himself there was no relationship, yet a certain negative
resemblance. Claud Fresnay, Viscount Harbinger, was indeed also a little
of what is called the 'Norman' type--having a certain firm regularity of
feature, and a slight aquilinity of nose high up on the bridge--but that
which in the elder man seemed to indicate only an unconscious acceptance
of self as a standard, in the younger man gave an impression at once
more assertive and more uneasy, as though he were a little afraid of not
chaffing something all the time.

Behind him had come in a tall woman, of full figure and fine presence,
with hair still brown--Lady Valleys herself. Though her eldest son was
thirty, she was, herself, still little more than fifty. From her voice,
manner, and whole personality, one might suspect that she had been an
acknowledged beauty; but there was now more than a suspicion of
maturity about her almost jovial face, with its full grey-blue eyes;
and coarsened complexion. Good comrade, and essentially 'woman of the
world,' was written on every line of her, and in every tone of he