“Won’t you stay with us, Mr. Walden?  Are you obliged to go?”

Walden looked at him unflinchingly, yet with a smile.

“When a man elects to speak his mind, Lord Roxmouth, his room is better than his company!”

And with this he left them—­to laugh at him if they chose—­caring little whether they did or not.  Passing into the hall, he took his hat and coat,—­he was angry with himself, yet not ashamed,—­for something in his soul told him that he had done rightly, even as a minister of the Gospel, to utter a protest against the vulgarising of womanhood.  He stepped out into the courtyard—­the moon was rising, and the air was very sweet and cool.

“I was wrong!”—­he said, half aloud—­“And yet I was right!  I should not have said what I did,—­and yet I should!  If no man is ever bold enough to protest again the voluntary and fast-increasing self-degradation of women, then men will be most to blame if the next generation of wives and mothers are shameless, unsexed, indecorous, and wholly unworthy of their life’s mission.  How angry she looked!  Possibly she will never speak to me again.  Well, what does it matter!  The wider apart our paths are set, the better!”

He reached the gate of the courtyard, and was about to pass through it, when a little fluttering figure in white, with crimson in its rough dark hair, rushed after him.  It was Cicely.

“Don’t go, please Mr. Walden!” she said, breathlessly; and he saw, even by the light of the moon, that her eyes were wet—­“Please don’t go!  Maryllia wishes to speak to you.”

He turned a pale, composed face upon her.

“Where?”

“In the picture-gallery.  She is alone there.  She saw you cross the courtyard, and sent me after you.  All the other people are in the drawing-room, waiting to hear me sing—­and I must run, for Gigue is there, and he is so impatient!  Please, Mr. Walden!”—­and Cicely’s voice shook—­“Please don’t mind if Maryllia is angry!  She is angry!  But it’s all on the surface—­she doesn’t really mean it—­she wouldn’t be unkind for all the world!  I know what you said,—­I was watching the dinner-party from the ante-room and I saw everything—­ and—­and—­I think you were just splendid!—­it’s horrid for women to smoke—­but they nearly all do it nowadays—­only I never saw Maryllia do it before, and oh, Mr. Walden, make it all right with her, please!”

For a moment John hesitated.  Then a kind smile softened his features.

“I can’t quite promise that, Cicely,—­but I’ll do my best!” And taking her hand he patted it gently, as she furtively dashed one or two tear-drops from her lashes—­“Come, come, you mustn’t cry!  Run away and sing like the little nightingale you are—­don’t fret—–­”

“But you’ll go to Maryllia, won’t you?” she urged, anxiously.

“Yes.  I’ll go!”

She lifted her dark eyes, and he saw how true and full of soul they were, despite their witch-like wildness and passion.  Just then a stormy passage of music, played on the piano, and tumbling out, as it seemed, on the air through the open windows of the Manor drawing-room, reminded her that she was being waited for by her impetuous and impatient maestro.