ke that!" she said; "you're
too large already...."

At dinner that night they were all in possession of the news. Sir
William had been informed by the local agent at Staverton, where Lord
Harbinger's speech had suffered from some rude interruptions. The Hon.
Geoffrey Winlow; having sent his wife on, had flown over in his biplane
from Winkleigh, and brought a copy of 'the rag' with him. The one member
of the small house-party who had not heard the report before dinner was
Lord Dennis Fitz-Harold, Lady Casterley's brother.

Little, of course, was said. But after the ladies had withdrawn,
Harbinger, with that plain-spoken spontaneity which was so unexpected,
perhaps a little intentionally so, in connection with his almost
classically formed face, uttered words to the effect that, if they did
not fundamentally kick that rumour, it was all up with Miltoun. Really
this was serious! And the beggars knew it, and they were going to work
it. And Miltoun had gone up to Town, no one knew what for. It was the
devil of a mess!

In all the conversation of this young man there was that peculiar brand
of voice, which seems ever rebutting an accusation of being serious--a
brand of voice and manner warranted against anything save ridicule;
and in the face of ridicule apt to disappear. The words, just a little
satirically spoken: "What is, my dear young man?" stopped him at once.

Looking for the complement and counterpart of Lady Casterley, one
would perhaps have singled out her brother. All her abrupt decision
was negated in his profound, ironical urbanity. His voice and look and
manner were like his velvet coat, which had here and there a whitish
sheen, as if it had been touched by moonlight. His hair too had that
sheen. His very delicate features were framed in a white beard and
moustache of Elizabethan shape. His eyes, hazel and still clear, looked
out very straight, with a certain dry kindliness. His face, though
unweathered and unseamed, and much too fine and thin in texture, had a
curious affinity to the faces of old sailors or fishermen who have lived
a simple, practical life in the light of an overmastering tradition. It
was the face of a man with a very set creed, and inclined to be satiric
towards innovations, examined by him and rejected full fifty years ago.
One felt that a brain not devoid either of subtlety or aesthetic quality
had long given up all attempts to interfere with conduct; that all
shrewdness of speculation