“I am sorry to find you feeling poorly, lady Ann,” she said when she entered the lady’s room. Vixen had told her that the horrid man had made her mama quite ill. Barbara found her with her room darkened, and a cup of green tea on a Japanese table beside the couch.

“It is only one of my headaches, child,” returned lady Ann.

“From what Victoria tells me, something serious must have happened to annoy you.”

“Nothing at all worth mentioning. He is an odd person, that workman of yours!”

“He is peculiar,” granted Barbara, “but I am certain he would not willingly make anyone angry.”

“Children will be troublesome,” said her ladyship.

“Particularly Victoria,” returned Barbara. “Mr. Tuke cannot bear to have his work put in jeopardy.”

“Very excusable in him.”

Barbara was surprised at her consideration and thought she must somehow be pleased with Richard.

“It would astonish you to hear him talk sometimes,” she said. “There is something remarkable about the young man. He must have a history somewhere!”

She had been thinking whether it was fair to sir Wilton and his family to conceal what she knew. Had they not a right to some preparation for the revelation if such should ever come? She had almost resolved, that very morning, to give lady Ann a hint of it.

Barbara was one of those to whom concealment is a positive pain. She had a natural hatred, most healthy and most Christian, to all secrets as such. She constantly wanted to say all that was in her, and when she could not, she felt grieved.

“He may have had good blood in him on one side,” suggested lady Ann. “He was rude to me, but I daresay it was the child’s fault. He seems intelligent.”

“He is more than intelligent. I suspect he could be a genius if given the chance.”

“I should have thought him a tradesman all over.”

“But his intelligence might make a gentleman of him.”

“It might make him grow to look like one, that’s all.”

“Isn’t that the same? Isn’t it all in the look?”

“By no means. A man must be born a gentleman or he is nothing,” said lady Ann.

She spoke as to an ignorant person from the colonies, where they could not be supposed to understand such things.

“But if his parents were gentlefolk?” suggested Barbara.

“Birth predetermines style,” said lady Ann, “though education and society do their share as well. But bad blood does occasionally get in.”

“I wish I knew what makes a gentleman!” sighed Barbara. “I have been trying to understand the thing all my life. Tell me, lady Ann—to be a gentleman, must a man be a good man?”

“I’m sorry to say,” she answered, “it is not necessary in the least.”

“Then a gentleman may do bad things and still be a gentleman?”

“Yes—that is, some bad things.”

“Do you mean—not many bad things?”