Barbara's calm voice said again:
“Anything else?”
The repetition of this phrase in that maddening, cool voice almost broke down her father's sorely tried control.
“Nothing from you,” he said with deadly coldness. “I shall have the honour of telling this gentleman what I think of him.”
At those words Barbara drew herself together, and turned her eyes from one face to the other.
Under that gaze, which for all its cool hardness, was so furiously alive, neither Lord nor Lady Valleys could keep quite still. It was as if she had stripped from them the well-bred mask of those whose spirits, by long unquestioning acceptance of themselves, have become inelastic, inexpansive, commoner than they knew. In fact a rather awful moment! Then Barbara said:
“If there's nothing else, I'm going to bed. Goodnight!”
And as calmly as she had come in, she went out.
When she had regained her room, she locked the door, threw off her cloak, and looked at herself in the glass. With pleasure she saw how firmly her teeth were clenched, how her breast was heaving, and how her eyes seemed to be stabbing herself. And all the time she thought:
“Very well! My dears! Very well!”