a little abruptly towards that dry suave voice, and recovering
the self-possession which seldom deserted him, Harbinger murmured:

"Quite so, sir; of course!"

CHAPTER IX

In the lesser withdrawing room, used when there was so small a party,
Mrs. Winlow had gone to the piano and was playing to herself, for Lady
Casterley, Lady Valleys, and her two daughters had drawn together as
though united to face this invading rumour.

It was curious testimony to Miltoun's character that, no more here
than in the dining-hall, was there any doubt of the integrity of his
relations with Mrs. Noel. But whereas, there the matter was confined to
its electioneering aspect, here that aspect was already perceived to
be only the fringe of its importance. Those feminine minds, going with
intuitive swiftness to the core of anything which affected their own
males, had already grasped the fact that the rumour would, as it were,
chain a man of Miltoun's temper to this woman.

But they were walking on such a thin crust of facts, and there was so
deep a quagmire of supposition beneath, that talk was almost painfully
difficult. Never before perhaps had each of these four women realized so
clearly how much Miltoun--that rather strange and unknown grandson,
son, and brother--counted in the scheme of existence. Their suppressed
agitation was manifested in very different ways. Lady Casterley, upright
in her chair, showed it only by an added decision of speech, a continual
restless movement of one hand, a thin line between her usually smooth
brows. Lady Valleys wore a puzzled look, as if a little surprised that
she felt serious. Agatha looked frankly anxious. She was in her quiet
way a woman of much character, endowed with that natural piety, which
accepts without questioning the established order in life and religion.
The world to her being home and family, she had a real, if gently
expressed, horror of all that she instinctively felt to be subversive
of this ideal. People judged her a little quiet, dull, and narrow; they
compared her to a hen for ever clucking round her chicks. The streak
of heroism that lay in her nature was not perhaps of patent order. Her
feeling about her brother's situation however was sincere and not to be
changed or comforted. She saw him in danger of being damaged in the only
sense in which she could conceive of a man--as a husband and a father.
It was this that went to her heart, though her piety proclaimed to her
a