"Disgusting!" she said; but when she next spoke it was in a less hard, more querulous voice.
"That man--what was his name--have you got rid of him?"Barbara went crimson.
"Abuse my friends, and I will go straight home and never speak to you again."For a moment Lady Casterley looked almost as if she might strike her granddaughter; then a little sardonic smile broke out on her face.
"A creditable sentiment!" she said.
Letting fall her uncle's hand, Barbara cried:
"In any case, I'd better go. I don't know why you sent for me."Lady Casterley answered coldly:
"To let you and your mother know of this woman's most unselfish behaviour; to put you on the 'qui vive' for what Eustace may do now;to give you a chance to make up for your folly. Moreover to warn you against----" she paused.
"Yes?"
"Let me----" interrupted Lord Dennis.
"No, Uncle Dennis, let Granny take her shoe!"She had withdrawn against the wall, tall, and as it were, formidable, with her head up. Lady Casterley remained silent.
"Have you got it ready?" cried Barbara: "Unfortunately he's flown!"A voice said:
"Lord Miltoun."
He had come in quietly and quickly, preceding the announcement, and stood almost touching that little group at the window before they caught sight of him. His face had the rather ghastly look of sunburnt faces from which emotion has driven the blood; and his eyes, always so much the most living part of him, were full of such stabbing anger, that involuntarily they all looked down.
"I want to speak to you alone," he said to Lady Casterley.
Visibly, for perhaps the first time in her life, that indomitable little figure flinched. Lord Dennis drew Barbara away, but at the door he whispered:
"Stay here quietly, Babs; I don't like the look of this."Unnoticed, Barbara remained hovering.
The two voices, low, and so far off in the long white room, were uncannily distinct, emotion charging each word with preternatural power of penetration; and every movement of the speakers had to the girl's excited eyes a weird precision, as of little figures she had once seen at a Paris puppet show. She could hear Miltoun reproaching his grandmother in words terribly dry and bitter. She edged nearer and nearer, till, seeing that they paid no more heed to her than if she were an attendant statue, she had regained her position by the window.
Lady Casterley was speaking.
"I was not going to see you ruined before my eyes, Eustace. I did what I did at very great cost. I did my best for you."Barbara saw Miltoun's face transfigured by a dreadful smile--the smile of one defying his torturer with hate. Lady Casterley went on:
"Yes, you stand there looking like a devil. Hate me if you like--but don't betray us, moaning and moping because you can't have the moon.
Put on your armour, and go down into the battle. Don't play the coward, boy!"Miltoun's answer cut like the lash of a whip.
"By God! Be silent!"
And weirdly, there was silence. It was not the brutality of the words, but the sight of force suddenly naked of all disguise--like a fierce dog let for a moment off its chain--which made Barbara utter a little dismayed sound. Lady Casterley had dropped into a chair, trembling. And without a look Miltoun passed her. If their grandmother had fallen dead, Barbara knew he would not have stopped to see. She ran forward, but the old woman waved her away.
"Go after him," she said, "don't let him go alone."And infected by the fear in that wizened voice, Barbara flew.
She caught her brother as he was entering the taxi-cab in which he had come, and without a word slipped in beside him. The driver's face appeared at the window, but Miltoun only motioned with his head, as if to say: Anywhere, away from here!
The thought flashed through Barbara: "If only I can keep him in here with me!"She leaned out, and said quietly:
"To Nettlefold, in Sussex--never mind your petrol--get more on the road. You can have what fare you like. Quick!"The man hesitated, looked in her face, and said:
"Very well; miss. By Dorking, ain't it?"Barbara nodded.