In consultation, however, they had only succeeded in
deciding that Lady Valleys should talk with her. Though without much
spiritual insight, they had, each of them, a certain cool judgment;
and were fully alive to the danger of thwarting Barbara. This had
not prevented Lord Valleys from expressing himself strongly on the
'confounded unscrupulousness of that fellow,' and secretly forming
his own plan for dealing with this matter. Lady Valleys, more deeply
conversant with her daughter's nature, and by reason of femininity more
lenient towards the other sex, had not tried to excuse Courtier, but
had thought privately: 'Babs is rather a flirt.' For she could not
altogether help remembering herself at the same age.
Summoned thus unexpectedly, Barbara, her lips very firmly pressed
together, took her stand, coolly enough, by her father's writing-table.
Seeing her suddenly appear, Lord Valleys instinctively relaxed his
frown; his experience of men and things, his thousands of diplomatic
hours, served to give him an air of coolness and detachment which he was
very far from feeling. In truth he would rather have faced a hostile mob
than his favourite daughter in such circumstances. His tanned face with
its crisp grey moustache, his whole head indeed, took on, unconsciously,
a more than ordinarily soldier-like appearance.
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