"Well, I don't quite know," he said tolerantly. "Rumour is generally a yard or two in front of reality. Perhaps Deerehurst is rather a mummified old _roue_; but then, you know, embalming is a clean process, Mrs. Milbanke, before, as well as after, death. I sometimes wonder whether Valentine won't put the family money to even less harmless use if he ever succeeds to the title. He is next in the succession, but for one feeble life." Clodagh's eyes opened. "Really!" she said. "I should never have connected him with so much responsibility." Barnard looked down at her. "Responsibility!" he said. "I don't think I should call it responsibility! But what has become of James?" He paused, and glanced round the fast emptying hall. As he did so, Milbanke hurried up, his manner newly interested, his thin face flushed. "Who do you think I have just seen, Clodagh?" he asked excitedly. "Mr. Angelo Tombs--that interesting scientist who joined our party at Pisa last year!" Clodagh looked round. "What?" she said in surprise. "The big, untidy-looking man, who had written a book on something terribly unpronounceable?" Milbanke nodded gravely. "Yes," he said. "A most interesting and exhaustive work. I shall make a point of congratulating him upon it directly we have finished dinner." "And what about me?" Barnard eyed him quizzically. "You! Oh, you must wait, David! You will understand that a man like Mr. Tombs is not to be met with every day." They were entering the dining-room as Milbanke spoke; and involuntarily Barnard glanced from the precise, formal figure of his friend, to the youthful, attractive form of his friend's wife. "And you, Mrs. Milbanke?" he asked in a undertone. "Are you an equally great enthusiast? Does the antique appeal very forcibly to you?" As he put the question, he was conscious of its irony; but an irrepressible curiosity forced him to utter it. He was still labouring under an intense surprise at Milbanke's choice of a wife; and the desire to probe the nature of the relationship was strong within him. "Are you like the man in the Eastern story?" he added. "Would you barter new lamps for old?" Clodagh was walking in front of him as he put the question, and Milbanke was left momentarily behind. For a second she made no reply; then suddenly she turned and cast a bright glance over her shoulder. "If you had asked me that question this morning, Mr. Barnard," she said, "I don't believe I could have answered it. But now I can. I would not part with one new, bright lamp for a hundred old ones--no matter how rare. Am I a great vandal?" Her eyes were shining with the excitement of the moment, and her face looked beautifully and eagerly alive. "Am I a great vandal?" she repeated softly. There was an instant's pause; then Barnard stepped closer to her side. "No, Mrs. Milbanke," he said. "But you are a very unmistakable child of Eve."