lso the peril of his soul; for she shared the High Church view of the
indissolubility of marriage.

As to Barbara, she stood by the hearth, leaning her white shoulders
against the carved marble, her hands behind her, looking down. Now and
then her lips curled, her level brows twitched, a faint sigh came from
her; then a little smile would break out, and be instantly suppressed.
She alone was silent--Youth criticizing Life; her judgment voiced itself
only in the untroubled rise and fall of her young bosom, the impatience
of her brows, the downward look of her blue eyes, full of a lazy,
inextinguishable light:

Lady Valleys sighed.

"If only he weren't such a queer boy! He's quite capable of marrying her
from sheer perversity."

"What!" said Lady Casterley.

"You haven't seen her, my dear. A most unfortunately attractive
creature--quite a charming face."

Agatha said quietly:

"Mother, if she was divorced, I don't think Eustace would."

"There's that, certainly," murmured Lady Valleys; "hope for the best!"

"Don't you even know which way it was?" said Lady Casterley.

"Well, the vicar says she did the divorcing. But he's very charitable;
it may be as Agatha hopes."

"I detest vagueness. Why doesn't someone ask the woman?"

"You shall come with me, Granny dear, and ask her yourself; you will do
it so nicely."

Lady Casterley looked up.

"We shall see," she said. Something struggled with the autocratic
criticism in her eyes. No more than the rest of the world could she help
indulging Barbara. As one who believed in the divinity of her order, she
liked this splendid child. She even admired--though admiration was not
what she excelled in--that warm joy in life, as of some great nymph,
parting the waves with bare limbs, tossing from her the foam of
breakers. She felt that in this granddaughter, rather than in the good
Agatha, the patrician spirit was housed. There were points to Agatha,
earnestness and high principle; but something morally narrow and
over-Anglican slightly offended the practical, this-worldly temper of
Lady Casterley. It was a weakness, and she disliked weakness. Barbara
would never be squeamish over moral questions or matters such as were
not really, essential to aristocracy. She might, indeed, err too much
the other way from sheer high spirits. As the impudent child had said:
"If people had no pasts, they would have no futures." And Lady Casterley
could not bear people without futures. She