"You are going to be good, Granny?"
"As to that--it will depend."
"You promised."
"H'm!"
Lady Casterley could not possibly have provided herself with a better
introduction than Barbara, whom Mrs. Noel never met without the sheer
pleasure felt by a sympathetic woman when she sees embodied in someone
else that 'joy in life' which Fate has not permitted to herself.
She came forward with her head a little on one side, a trick of hers not
at all affected, and stood waiting.
The unembarrassed Barbara began at once:
"We've just had an encounter with a bull. This is my grandmother, Lady
Casterley."
The little old lady's demeanour, confronted with this very pretty face
and figure was a thought less autocratic and abrupt than usual. Her
shrewd eyes saw at once that she had no common adventuress to deal with.
She was woman of the world enough, too, to know that 'birth' was not
what it had been in her young days, that even money was rather rococo,
and that good looks, manners, and a knowledge of literature, art,
and music (and this woman looked like one of that sort), were often
considered socially more valuable. She was therefore both wary and
affable.
"How do you do?" she said. "I have heard of you. May we sit down for a
minute in your garden? The bull was a wretch!"
But even in speaking, she was uneasily conscious that Mrs.
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