know, I don't know," said the little-eyed man stubbornly; "if
Lord Miltoun will spend his evenings with lonely ladies, he can't blame
anybody but himself."

Courtier looked from face to face.

"This closes my connection with the campaign," he said: "What's the
address of this paper?" And without waiting for an answer, he took up
the journal and hobbled from the room. He stood a minute outside finding
the address, then made his way down the street.

CHAPTER VIII

By the side of little Ann, Barbara sat leaning back amongst the cushions
of the car. In spite of being already launched into high-caste life
which brings with it an early knowledge of the world, she had still
some of the eagerness in her face which makes children lovable. Yet she
looked negligently enough at the citizens of Bucklandbury, being already
a little conscious of the strange mixture of sentiment peculiar to her
countrymen in presence of herself--that curious expression on their
faces resulting from the continual attempt to look down their noses
while slanting their eyes upwards. Yes, she was already alive to that
mysterious glance which had built the national house and insured it
afterwards--foe to cynicism, pessimism, and anything French or Russian;
parent of all the national virtues, and all the national vices; of
idealism and muddle-headedness, of independence and servility; fosterer
of conduct, murderer of speculation; looking up, and looking down, but
never straight at anything; most high, most deep, most queer; and ever
bubbling-up from the essential Well of Emulation.

Surrounded by that glance, waiting for Courtier, Barbara, not less
British than her neighbours, was secretly slanting her own eyes up and
down over the absent figure of her new acquaintance. She too wanted
something she could look up to, and at the same time see damned first.
And in this knight-errant it seemed to her that she had got it.

He was a creature from another world. She had met many men, but not as
yet one quite of this sort. It was rather nice to be with a clever man,
who had none the less done so many outdoor things, been through so many
bodily adventures. The mere writers, or even the 'Bohemians,' whom
she occasionally met, were after all only 'chaplains to the Court,'
necessary to keep aristocracy in touch with the latest developments of
literature and art. But this Mr. Courtier was a man of action; he could
not be looked on with the amused, admiring to