Whatever was done, they must not forget that she had nursed him--saved him, Barbara had said! She must be treated with all kindness and consideration.
Hastening her toilette, she in turn went to her daughter's room.
Barbara was already dressed, leaning out of her window towards the sea.
Lady Valleys began almost timidly:
"My dear, is Eustace out of bed yet?"
"He was to get up to-day for an hour or two.""I see. Now, would there be any danger if you and I went up and took charge over from Mrs. Noel?""Poor Eusty!"
"Yes, yes! But, exercise your judgment. Would it harm him?"Barbara was silent. "No," she said at last, "I don't suppose it would, now; but it's for the doctor to say."Lady Valleys exhibited a manifest relief.
"We'll see him first, of course. Eustace will have to have an ordinary nurse, I suppose, for a bit."Looking stealthily at Barbara, she added:
"I mean to be very nice to her; but one mustn't be romantic, you know, Babs.">From the little smile on Barbara's lips she derived no sense of certainty; indeed she was visited by all her late disquietude about her young daughter, by all the feeling that she, as well as Miltoun, was hovering on the verge of some folly.
"Well, my dear," she said, "I am going down."But Barbara lingered a little longer in that bedroom where ten nights ago she had lain tossing, till in despair she went and cooled herself in the dark sea.
Her last little interview with Courtier stood between her and a fresh meeting with Harbinger, whom at the Valleys House gathering she had not suffered to be alone with her. She came down late.
That same evening, out on the beach road, under a sky swarming with stars, the people were strolling--folk from the towns, down for their fortnight's holiday. In twos and threes, in parties of six or eight, they passed the wall at the end of Lord Dennis's little domain; and the sound of their sparse talk and laughter, together with the sighing of the young waves, was blown over the wall to the ears of Harbinger, Bertie, Barbara, and Lily Malvezin, when they strolled out after dinner to sniff the sea. The holiday-makers stared dully at the four figures in evening dress looking out above their heads; they had other things than these to think of, becoming more and more silent as the night grew dark. The four young people too were rather silent. There was something in this warm night, with its sighing, and its darkness, and its stars, that was not favourable to talk, so that presently they split into couples, drifting a little apart.
Standing there, gripping the wall, it seemed to Harbinger that there were no words left in the world. Not even his worst enemy could have called this young man romantic; yet that figure beside him, the gleam of her neck and her pale cheek in the dark, gave him perhaps the most poignant glimpse of mystery that he had ever had. His mind, essentially that of a man of affairs, by nature and by habit at home amongst the material aspects of things, was but gropingly conscious that here, in this dark night, and the dark sea, and the pale figure of this girl whose heart was dark to him and secret, there was perhaps something--yes, something--which surpassed the confines of his philosophy, something beckoning him on out of his snug compound into the desert of divinity. If so, it was soon gone in the aching of his senses at the scent of her hair, and the longing to escape from this weird silence.
"Babs," he said; "have you forgiven me?"
Her answer came, without turn of head, natural, indifferent:
"Yes--I told you so."
"Is that all you have to say to a fellow?""What shall we talk about--the running of Casetta?"Deep down within him Harbinger uttered a noiseless oath. Something sinister was making her behave like this to him! It was that fellow--that fellow! And suddenly he said:
"Tell me this----" then speech seemed to stick in his throat. No!
If there were anything in that, he preferred not to hear it. There was a limit!
Down below, a pair of lovers passed, very silent, their arms round each other's waists.
Barbara turned and walked away towards the house.
