king that very day! From its sleeping body
the supreme wistful spirit had emerged in dark loveliness, and was
low-flying down there, tempting her. Barbara turned round, to take in
all that amazing prospect, from the black glades of Hyde Park, in front,
to the powdery white ghost of a church tower, away to the East. How
marvellous was this city of night! And as, in presence of that wide
darkness of the sea before dawn, her spirit had felt little and timid
within her--so it felt now, in face of this great, brooding, beautiful
creature, whom man had made. She singled out the shapes of the
Piccadilly hotels, and beyond them the palaces and towers of Westminster
and Whitehall; and everywhere the inextricable loveliness of dim blue
forms and sinuous pallid lines of light, under an indigo-dark sky. Near
at hand, she could see plainly the still-lighted windows, the motorcars
gliding by far down, even the tiny shapes of people walking; and the
thought that each of them meant someone like herself, seemed strange.

Drinking of this wonder-cup, she began to experience a queer
intoxication, and lost the sense of being little; rather she had the
feeling of power, as in her dream at Monkland. She too, as well as this
great thing below her, seemed to have shed her body, to be emancipated
from every barrier-floating deliciously identified with air. She
seemed to be one with the enfranchised spirit of the city, drowned
in perception of its beauty. Then all that feeling went, and left her
frowning, shivering, though the wind from the West was warm. Her whole
adventure of coming up here seemed bizarre, ridiculous. Very stealthily
she crept down, and had reached once more the door into 'the picture
gallery, when she heard her mother's voice say in amazement: "That you,
Babs?" And turning, saw her coming from the doorway of the sanctum.

Of a sudden very cool, with all her faculties about her, Barbara smiled,
and stood looking at Lady Valleys, who said with hesitation:

"Come in here, dear, a minute, will you?"

In that room resorted to for comfort, Lord Valleys was standing with his
back to the hearth, and an expression on his face that wavered between
vexation and decision. The doubt in Agatha's mind whether she should
tell or no, had been terribly resolved by little Ann, who in a pause
of conversation had announced: "We saw Auntie Babs and Mr. Courtier in
Gustard's, but we didn't speak to them."

Upset by the events of the afternoon,