Lady Valleys' visit came as a timely consolation.
She kissed her daughter critically; for there was that about her manner
which she did not like.
"Yes, of course I am well!" she said. "Why didn't you bring Barbara?"
"She was tired!"
"H'm! Afraid of meeting me, since she committed that piece of folly over
Eustace. You must be careful of that child, Gertrude, or she will be
doing something silly herself. I don't like the way she keeps Claud
Harbinger hanging in the wind."
Her daughter cut her short:
"There is bad news about Eustace."
Lady Casterley lost the little colour in her cheeks; lost, too, all her
superfluity of irritable energy.
"Tell me, at once!"
Having heard, she said nothing; but Lady Valleys noticed with alarm that
over her eyes had come suddenly the peculiar filminess of age.
"Well, what do you advise?" she asked.
Herself tired, and troubled, she was conscious of a quite unwonted
feeling of discouragement before this silent little figure, in the
silent white room. She had never before seen her mother look as if she
heard Defeat passing on its dark wings. And moved by sudden tenderness
for the little frail body that had borne her so long ago, she murmured
almost with surprise:
"Mother, dear!"
"Yes," said Lady Casterley, as if speaking to herself, "the boy saves
things up; he stores his feelings--they burst and sweep him away.
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