half an hour's rest," says Mrs. Monkton,
reluctantly, who is, in truth, feeling as fresh as a daisy, but who is
afraid to stay. "But I shall be back for tea." She gives a little kindly
glance to Felix, and, with a heart filled with forebodings, leaves the
room.

"What a glorious day it has been!" says Joyce, continuing the
conversation with Dysart in that new manner of hers, quite as if
Barbara's going was a matter of small importance, and the fact that she
has left them for the first time for all these months alone together of
less importance still.

She is standing on the hearthrug, and is slowly taking the pins out of
her bonnet. She seems utterly unconcerned. He might be the veriest
stranger, or else the oldest, the most uninteresting friend in the
world.

She has taken out all the pins now, and has thrown her bonnet on to the
lounge nearest to her, and is standing before the glass in the
overmantel patting and pushing into order the soft locks that lie upon
her forehead.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

"Ah, were she pitiful as she is fair."
"Life's a varied, bright illusion,
Joy and sorrow--light and shade."

"It was almost warm," says she, turning round to him. She seems to be
talking all the time, so vivid is her face, so intense her vitality. "I
was so glad to see the Brabazons again. You know them, don't you? Kit
looked perfect. So lovely, so good in every way--voice, face, manners. I
felt I envied her. It would be delightful to feel that every one must be
admiring one, as she does." She glances at him, and he leans a little
toward her. "No, no, not a compliment, please. I know I am as much
behind Kit as the moon is behind the sun."

"I wasn't going to pay you a compliment," says he, slowly.

"No?" she laughs. It was unlike her to have made that remark, and just
as unlike her to have taken his rather discourteous reply so
good-naturedly.

"It was a charming visit," she goes on, not in haste, but idly as it
were, and as if words are easy to her. "I quite enjoyed it. Barbara
didn't. I think she wanted to get home--she is always thinking of the
babies--or----Well, I did. I am not ungrateful. I take the goods the
gods provide, and find honest pleasure in them. I do not think, indeed,
I laughed so much for quite a century as to-day with Kit."

"She is sympathetic," says Felix, with the smallest thought of the
person in question in his mind.

"More than that, surely. Though that is a hymn of prai