"Were you speaking to me?" asked Barbara in an icy voice, and looking up at him with a calm rigid blank face.
"To whom else should I be speaking? to whom else should I apply that term?"
"Really I can't say. The last time you spoke to me, you were good enough to swear; and as I know you pride yourself on your consistency, I could not imagine you could so soon alter your tone."
"No; but, Barbara dearest, you should not throw that in my teeth; you know that I was vexed; that I--"
"Vexed, Frank! Vexed! I wonder at you! You accuse me of something utterly untrue, in language such as I have never listened to before; and then, as an excuse, you plead that you were vexed!"
"I was foolish, Barbara, headstrong and horrible, and let my confounded temper get the mastery over me; but then, child, you ought to forgive me; for all I did was from excess of love for you. If I did not hang upon every word, every action, of yours, I should be far less exacting in my affection. You should think of that, Barbara."
His voice was broken as he spoke, and she noticed that the hand which was upon her chair-back shook palpably.
"You could not have meant what you said in the brougham, Frank," said she in a softened tone. "You could not have imagined that I should have permitted--there, I cannot speak of it!" she exclaimed abruptly, placing her handkerchief to her swimming eyes.
"No, my darling, I will not. I could not--I never--of course--fool that I am!" and then incoherently, but satisfactorily, the question was dismissed.
Dismissed temporarily, but by no means forgotten, by no means laid aside by either of them. Captain Lyster called the next day while Frank was at the office, eager to see whether Mrs. Churchill had repented of the task she had undertaken in counselling and warning Alice Schröder; and Barbara told her husband on his return of the visit she had had, and mentioned it with eyes which a desire not to look conscious rendered somewhat defiant, and with cheeks which flushed simply because it was the last thing they ought to have done. Heaven knows Barbara Churchill had nothing to be ashamed of in being visited by Captain Lyster. She never had the smallest sign of a feeling stronger than friendship for him, and yet she felt somewhat guilty, as she acknowledged to herself that his visit had given her very great pleasure. The truth was that the garden-party at Uplands had completely upset the current of Barbara's life. When, in the first wild passion of her love for him who became her husband, she had willingly forfeited all that had hitherto been the pleasure of her life,--the luxury and admiration in which she had been reared, the pleasant surroundings which had been hers since her cradle,--she had found something in exchange. She had given up half-a-hundred friendships, which she knew to be hollow and empty; but she had consoled herself with one vast love, which she believed to be lasting and true, and which, after all, was a novelty.