In the world it is too often self that is served, and the gallant courtier may be a bear at home. My Lord Gore was a man charmed with his own charm. It pleased him to shine upon people, to radiate warmth, to be looked upon as generous and splendid by men of duller manners. Yet he could act generously, and not always with an eye to personal effect. The plague came when his own comfort or his self-love were menaced. Then the great gentleman, the classic courtier, showed the crust of Cain beneath silks and velvets and coats of arms. Cross him, and Stephen Gore’s stateliness became a power to crush instead of to propitiate. He could be brutal with a courtly, sneering facility that was more dangerous than the blundering anger of a rough and clumsy nature. For though every man with the normal passions in him may be a potential Cain, it is chiefly in the two extremes of brutishness and luxurious refinement that one meets with that savage intolerance of the rights of others. And it must be confessed that in the matter of sheer selfishness the poet has often eclipsed the boor. At the supper-table Anne Purcell spoke of Barbara’s singing. Who was considered the best master, and did my lord prefer the Italian manner? “For a man, yes,” he answered, quickly, “if he has a bull’s chest on him. But give me a Frenchman to teach a woman to sing love-songs. That is the fashion for Proserpine, eh, when Master Pluto has gone a-farming?” He winked at Barbara over his wine, looking very bland and fatherly, with his lips rounded as though he were saying “Oporto” to his own comfort. “You might try the girl’s voice after supper, Stephen.” My lord was very ready. He had a bass of rich compass, like the voice of a popish priest chanting in some glorious choir. “Herrick should be the man for Barbara. Soft, delicate lyrics, with an amorous droop of the eyelids. Poor Lionel was too fond of the old Cavalier ditties.” Barbara looked at him with sombre, widely opened eyes. It was not often of late that she had heard him speak her father’s name. And that night it woke a flare of exultant anger in her, because of the touch of patronage, as though the dead could always be safely pitied. “Well, then, let us go to the music-room,” said her mother. “I will ring to have candles lit.” My lord wiped his mouth daintily and laughed. “Next month there will be no lights needed, but chaste Diana peeping through the casements and wishing she was not cursed with so prudish a reputation.” They wandered out into the garden, where a great slant of golden light came over the trees and made the grass vivid, even to violet in the shadows. Barbara walked a little apart, like one whose thoughts went silently to meet the night. Now and again she glanced at my lord, when his eyes were off her, with an earnestness that might have puzzled him had he noticed it.