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Updated: June 22, 2025
There was no trace, indeed, of the common Pharisee in Miltoun, he was simple and direct; but his eyes, his gestures, the whole man, proclaimed the presence of some secret spring of certainty, some fundamental well into which no disturbing glimmers penetrated.
That dark figure of conscious power struggling in the fetters of its own belief in power, was a piece of sculpture they had neither time nor wish to understand, having no taste for tragedy for witnessing the human spirit driven to the wall. It was five o'clock before Miltoun left the Bridge, and passed, like an exile, before the gates of Church and State, on his way to his uncle's Club.
She had not spoken of herself at all, but had talked nearly all the time of Barbara, praising her beauty and high spirit; growing pale once or twice, and evidently drinking in with secret avidity every allusion to Miltoun. Clearly, her feelings had not changed, though she would not show them! Courtier's pity for her became well-nigh violent.
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.
"Oh, Eusty!" she said, "you're not going to spoil your life like this! Just think how I shall feel." Miltoun answered stonily: "You did what you thought right; as I am doing." "Does she want you to?" "No." "There is, I should imagine," put in Lord Valleys, "not a solitary creature in the whole world except your brother himself who would wish for this consummation.
And yet, that it was working mischief, they felt by the secret voice in their own souls, telling them that they would have believed it if they had not known better. They hung about, waiting for Miltoun to come in. The news was received by Lady Valleys with a sigh of intense relief, and the remark that it was probably another lie.
"It's the head-line that does it;" said the third Committee-man; "they've put what will attract the public." "I don't know, I don't know," said the little-eyed man stubbornly; "if Lord Miltoun will spend his evenings with lonely ladies, he can't blame anybody but himself." Courtier looked from face to face.
In the face of what she felt to be a really serious crisis between these two utterly different creatures of the other sex, her husband and her son, she had dropped her mask and become a genuine woman. Unconsciously both men felt this change, and in speaking, turned towards her. "I can't argue it," said Miltoun; "I consider myself bound in honour." "And then?" she asked.
But though so close that they were almost touching, they no longer looked at one another. Then Miltoun said: "There is only to say good-bye, then." At those clear words spoken by lips which, though just smiling, failed so utterly to hide his misery, Mrs. Noel's face became colourless as her white gown.
Judging at once from the expression of her face that she must have heard the news of Miltoun, Barbara said: "Well, my dear Angel, any lecture for me?" Agatha answered coldly: "I think you were quite mad to take Mrs. Noel to him." "The whole duty of woman," murmured Barbara, "includes a little madness." Agatha looked at her in silence. "I can't make you out," she said at last; "you're not a fool!"
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