t joke if one's had a baby without being married, you know."

Lauder went suddenly slack. A shell might have burst a few paces from
him. And then, just as one would in such a case, he made an effort,
braced himself, and said in a curious voice, both stiff and heavy: "I
can't--one doesn't--it's not--"

"It is," said Noel. "If you don't believe me, ask Daddy."

He put his hand up to his round collar; and with the wild thought that
he was going to tear it off, she cried: "Don't!"

"You!" he said. "You! But--"

Noel turned away from him to the window: She stood looking out, but saw
nothing whatever.

"I don't want it hidden," she said without turning round, "I want every
one to know. It's stupid as it is--stupid!" and she stamped her foot.
"Can't you see how stupid it is--everybody's mouth falling open!"

He uttered a little sound which had pain in it, and she felt a real pang
of compunction. He had gripped the back of a chair; his face had lost
its heaviness. A dull flush coloured his cheeks. Noel had a feeling, as
if she had been convicted of treachery. It was his silence, the curious
look of an impersonal pain beyond power of words; she felt in him
something much deeper than mere disapproval--something which echoed
within herself. She walked quickly past him and escaped. She ran
upstairs and threw herself on her bed. He was nothing: it was not that!
It was in herself, the awful feeling, for the first time developed and
poignant, that she had betrayed her caste, forfeited the right to be
thought a lady, betrayed her secret reserve and refinement, repaid with
black ingratitude the love lavished on her up bringing, by behaving like
any uncared-for common girl. She had never felt this before--not even
when Gratian first heard of it, and they had stood one at each end of
the hearth, unable to speak. Then she still had her passion, and her
grief for the dead. That was gone now as if it had never been; and she
had no defence, nothing between her and this crushing humiliation and
chagrin. She had been mad! She must have been mad! The Belgian Barra was
right: "All a little mad" in this "forcing-house" of a war! She buried
her face deep in the pillow, till it almost stopped her power of
breathing; her head and cheeks and ears seemed to be on fire. If only he
had shown disgust, done something which roused her temper, her sense
of justice, her feeling that Fate had been too cruel to her; but he had
just stood there, bewilderm