Surrounded by that glance, waiting for Courtier, Barbara, not less
British than her neighbours, was secretly slanting her own eyes up and
down over the absent figure of her new acquaintance. She too wanted
something she could look up to, and at the same time see damned first.
And in this knight-errant it seemed to her that she had got it.
He was a creature from another world. She had met many men, but not as
yet one quite of this sort. It was rather nice to be with a clever man,
who had none the less done so many outdoor things, been through so many
bodily adventures. The mere writers, or even the 'Bohemians,' whom
she occasionally met, were after all only 'chaplains to the Court,'
necessary to keep aristocracy in touch with the latest developments of
literature and art. But this Mr. Courtier was a man of action; he could
not be looked on with the amused, admiring toleration suited to men
remarkable only for ideas, and the way they put them into paint or ink.
He had used, and could use, the sword, even in the cause of Peace. He
could love, had loved, or so they said: If Barbara had been a girl of
twenty in another class, she would probably never have heard of this,
and if she had heard, it might very well have dismayed or shocked her.
But she had heard, and without shock, because she had already learned
that men were like that, and women too sometimes.
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