Seated in the embrasure of the window behind the looking-glass, where Lady Valleys was still occupied, she was saying: 

“He fell out of the window because of the red pepper.  Miss Wallace says he is a hostage—­what does hostage mean, Granny?”

When six years ago that word had first fallen on Lady Valleys’ ears, she had thought:  “Oh! dear!  Am I really Granny?” It had been a shock, had seemed the end of so much; but the matter-of-fact heroism of women, so much quicker to accept the inevitable than men, had soon come to her aid, and now, unlike her husband, she did not care a bit.  For all that she answered nothing, partly because it was not necessary to speak in order to sustain a conversation with little Ann, and partly because she was deep in thought.

The man was injured!  Hospitality, of course—­especially since their own tenants had committed the outrage!  Still, to welcome a man who had gone out of his way to come down here and stump the country against her own son, was rather a tall order.  It might have been worse, no doubt.  If; for instance, he had been some ‘impossible’ Nonconformist Radical!  This Mr. Courtier was a free lance—­rather a well-known man, an interesting creature.  She must see that he felt ‘at home’ and comfortable.  If he were pumped judiciously, no doubt one could find out about this woman.  Moreover, the acceptance of their ‘salt’ would silence him politically if she knew anything of that type of man, who always had something in him of the Arab’s creed.  Her mind, that of a capable administrator, took in all the practical significance of this incident, which, although untoward, was not without its comic side to one disposed to find zest and humour in everything that did not absolutely run counter to her interests and philosophy.

The voice of little Ann broke in on her reflections.

“I’m going to Auntie Babs now.”

“Very well; give me a kiss first.”

Little Ann thrust up her face, so that its sudden little nose penetrated Lady Valleys’ soft curving lips....

When early that same afternoon Courtier, leaning on a stick, passed from his room out on to the terrace, he was confronted by three sunlit peacocks marching slowly across a lawn towards a statue of Diana.  With incredible dignity those birds moved, as if never in their lives had they been hurried.  They seemed indeed to know that when they got there, there would be nothing for them to do but to come back again.  Beyond them, through the tall trees, over some wooded foot-hills of the moorland and a promised land of pinkish fields, pasture, and orchards, the prospect stretched to the far sea.  Heat clothed this view with a kind of opalescence, a fairy garment, transmuting all values, so that the four square walls and tall chimneys of the pottery-works a few miles down the valley seemed to Courtier like a vision of some old fortified Italian town.  His sensations,