turned her rings and
a rose that had been stolen from her by the Black Highwayman only the
night before.

Just a moment's consideration of the conditions and incidents, the
chances and mischances, that led up to this denouncement will show
that it was not so strange a thing, after all. To take the Lady
Barbara, first. Up to the time of her visit to London, Lord Farquhart
had been to her something of a figurehead. She had considered him
merely as a creature quite inanimate and impersonal, who was to be
forced upon her by her father's will just as she was to be forced upon
him. But Lord Farquhart in the flesh was a young man of most pleasing
appearance, if of most exasperating manners. When the Lady Barbara
compared him with the other gallants of the society she frequented she
found that he had few peers among them, and as she accepted his
punctilious courtesies and attentions she began to long to see them
infused with some personal warmth and interest. She saw no reason why
Lord Farquhart should be the one and only gentleman of her
acquaintance who discerned no charm in her. It piqued something more
than her vanity to see that she alone of all the ladies whom he met
could rouse in him no personal interest whatsoever. And, almost
unconsciously, she exerted herself to win from him some sign of
approbation.

Also, in addition to her awakened interest in Lord Farquhart--or
possibly because of it--the Lady Barbara thought she saw in Mr.
Ashley's devotion some new, some curious, some quite displeasing
quality. It was not that he was not as courteous as ever. It was not
that he was not as attentive as ever. It was not that he did not speak
his love as tenderly, as warmly, as ever. All this was quite as it had
been. But in his courtesies the Lady Barbara recognized a thinly
veiled--it was not contempt, of course, but there was the suggestion
of the manner one would offer to a goddess who had advanced a step
toward the extreme edge of her pedestal. And this Barbara resented. In
his attentions he was quite solicitous, but it was a solicitude of
custom--of custom to be, perhaps, as much as of custom that has been.
To this Barbara objected. Already, too, his love savored of
possession. Against this Barbara chafed. She would give her favors
when she was ready to give them. They would be gifts, though--not
things held by right.

Her resentments, her objections, her chafings, she tried to hold in
check. She endeavored to show no s