Lady Blackwater, however, was not long before she obliged him by dying.

Her girl, then twelve years old, lived for a time with one of her

mother's trustees. But when she had reached the age of seventeen her

father suddenly commanded her presence in Paris, that she might make

acquaintance with his second wife.

The new Lady Blackwater was an extremely beautiful woman, Irish, as the

first had been, but like her in no other respect. Margaret Fitzgerald

was the daughter of a cosmopolitan pair, who after many shifts for a

living, had settled in Paris, where the father acted as correspondent

for various English papers. Her beauty, her caprices, and her "affairs"

were all well known in Paris. As to what the relations between her and

Lord Blackwater might have been before the death of the wife, Lord

Grosville took a frankly uncharitable view. But when that event

occurred, Blackwater was beginning to get old, and Miss Fitzgerald had

become necessary to him. She pressed all her advantages, and it ended in

his marrying her. The new Lady Blackwater presented him with one child,

a daughter; and about two years after its birth he sent for his elder

daughter, Lady Alice, to join them in the sumptuous apartment in the

Place Vendôme which he had furnished for his new wife, in defiance both

of his English and Irish creditors.

Lady Alice arrived--a fair slip of a girl, possessed, it was plain to

see, by a nervous terror both of her father and step-mother. But Lady

Blackwater received her with effusion, caressed her in public, dressed

her to perfection, and made all possible use of the girl's presence in

the house for the advancement of her own social position. Within a year

the Belfast trustees, watching uneasily from a distance, received a

letter from Lord Blackwater, announcing Lady Alice's runaway marriage

with a certain Colonel Wensleydale, formerly of the Grenadier Guards.

Lord Blackwater professed himself vastly annoyed and displeased. The

young people, furiously in love, had managed the affair, however, with a

skill that baffled all vigilance. Married they were, and without any

settlements, Colonel Wensleydale having nothing to settle, and Lady

Alice, like a little fool, being only anxious to pour all that she

possessed into the lap of her beloved. The father threw himself on the

mercy of the trustees, reminding them that in little more than three

years Lady Alice would become unfettered mistress of her own fortune,

and begging them meanwhile to make proper provision for the rash but

happy pair. Harry Wensleydale, after all, was a rattling good fellow,

with whom all the young women were in love. The thing, though naughty,

was natural; and the colonel would make an excellent husband.

One Presbyterian trustee left his business in Belfast and ventured

himself among the abominations of Paris. He was much befooled and

befeasted. He found a shy young wife tremulously in love; a handsome

husband; an amiable step-mother. He knew no one in Paris who could

enlighten him, and was not clever enough to invent means of getting

information for himself. He was induced to promise a sufficient income

for the moment on behalf of himself and his co-trustee; and for the rest

was obliged to be content with vague assurances from Colonel Wensleydale

that as soon as his wife came into her property fitting settlements

should be made.

Four years passed by. The young people lived with the Blackwaters, and

their income kept the establishment going. Lady Alice had a child, and

was at first not altogether unhappy. She was little more than a timid

child herself; and no doubt, to begin with, she was in love. Then came

her majority. In defiance of all her trustees, she gave her whole

fortune to her husband, and no power could prevent her from so doing.

The Blackwater ménage blazed up into a sudden splendor. Lady

Blackwater's carriage and Lady Blackwater's jewels had never been finer;

and amid the crowds who frequented the house, the slight figure, the

sallow face, and absent eyes of her step-daughter attracted little

remark. Lady Alice Wensleydale was said to be delicate and reserved; she

made no friends, explained herself to no one; and it was supposed that

she occupied herself with her little boy.

Then one December she disappeared from the apartment in the Place

Vendôme. It was said that she and the boy found the climate of Paris too

cold in winter, and had gone for a time to Italy. Colonel Wensleydale

continued to live with the Blackwaters, and their apartment was no less

sumptuous, their dinners no less talked of, their extravagance no less

noisy than before. But Lady Alice did not come back with the spring; and

some ugly rumors began to creep about. They were checked, however, by

the death of Lord Blackwater, which occurred within a year of his

daughter's departure; by the monstrous debts he left behind him; and by

the sale of the contents of the famous apartment, matters, all of them,

sufficiently ugly or scandalous in themselves to keep the tongues of

fame busy. Lady Blackwater left Paris, and when she reappeared, it was

in Rome as the Comtesse d'Estrées, the wife of yet another old man,

whose health obliged them to winter in the south and to spend the summer

in yachting. Her _salon_ in Rome under Pio Nono became a great

rendezvous for English and Americans, attracted by the historic names

and titles that M. d'Estrées' connections among the Black nobility, his

wealth, and his interest in several of the Catholic banking-houses of

Rome and Naples enabled his wife to command.

Colonel Wensleydale did not appear. Madame d'Estrées let it be

understood that her step-daughter was of a difficult temper, and now

spent most of her time in Ireland. Her own daughter, her "darling

Kitty," was being educated in Paris by the Soeurs Blanches, and she

pined for the day when the "little sweet" should join her, ready to

spread her wings in the great world. But mothers must not be impatient,

Kitty must have all the advantages that befitted her rank; and to what

better hands could the most anxious mother intrust her than to those

charming, aristocratic, accomplished nuns of the Soeurs Blanches?

Then one January day M. d'Estrées drove out to San Paolo fuori le Mura,

and caught a blast from the snowy Sabines coming back. In three days he

was dead, and his well-provided widow had snatched the bulk of his

fortune from the hands of his needy and embittered kindred.

Within six months of his death she had bought a house in St. James's

Place, and her London career had begun.

* * * * *

"It is here that we come in," said Lord Grosville, when, with more

digressions and more plainness of speech with regard to his quondam

sister-in-law than can be here reproduced, he had brought his story to

this point. "Blackwater--the old ruffian--when he was dying had a moment

of remorse. He wrote to my wife and asked her to look after his girls,

'For God's sake, Lina, see if you can help Alice--Wensleydale's a

perfect brute.' That was the first light we had on the situation, for

Adelina had long before washed her hands of him; and we knew that _she_

hated us. Well, we tried; of course we tried. But so long as her

husband lived Alice would have nothing to say to any of us. I suppose

she thought that for her boy's sake she'd better keep a bad business to

herself as much as possible--"

"Wensleydale--Wensleydale?" said Ashe, who had been smoking hard and

silently beside his host. "You mean the man who distinguished himself in

the Crimea? He died last year--at Naples, wasn't it?"

Lord Grosville assented.

It appeared that during the last year of his life Lady Alice had nursed

her husband faithfully through disease and poverty; for scarcely a

vestige of her fortune remained, and an application for money made by

Wensleydale to Madame d'Estrées, unknown to his wife, had been

peremptorily refused. The colonel died, and within three months of his

death Lady Alice had also lost her son and only child, of

blood-poisoning developed in Naples, whither he had been summoned from

school that his father might see him for the last time.

Then, after seventeen years, Lady Alice came back to her kindred, who

had last seen her as a young girl--gentle, undeveloped, easily led, and

rather stupid. She returned a gray-haired woman of thirty-four, who had

lost youth, fortune, child, and husband; whose aspect, moreover,

suggested losses still deeper and more drear. At first she wrapped

herself in what seemed to some a dull and to others a tragic silence.

But suddenly a flame leaped up in her. She became aware of the position

of Madame d'Estrées in London; and one day, at a private view of the

Academy, her former step-mother went up to her smiling, with

out-stretched hand. Lady Alice turned very pale; the hand dropped, and

Alice Wensleydale walked rapidly away. But that night, in the Grosville

house, she spoke out.

"She told Lina and myself the whole story. You'd have thought the woman

was possessed. My wife--she's not of the crying sort, nor am I. But she

cried, and I believe--well, I can tell you it was enough to move a

stone. And when she'd done, she just went away, and locked her door, and

let no one say a word to her. She has told one or two other relations

and friends, and--"

"And the relations and friends have told others?"

"Well, I can answer for myself," said Grosville after a pause. "This

happened three months ago. I never have told, and never shall tell, all

the details as she told them to us. But we have let enough be known--"

"Enough?--enough to damn Madame d'Estrées?"

"Oh, well, as far as the women were concerned, she was mostly that

already. There are other tales going about. I expect you know them."

"No, I don't know them," said Ashe.

Lord Grosville's face expressed surprise. "Well, this finished it," he

said.

"Poor child!" said Ashe, slowly, putting down his cigarette and turning

a thoughtful look on the carpet.

"Alice?" said Lord Grosville.

"No."

"Oh! you mean Kitty? Yes, I had forgotten her for the moment. Yes, poor

child."

There was silence a moment, then Lord Grosville inquired:

"What do you think of her?"

"I?" said Ashe, with a laugh. "I don't know. She's obviously very

pretty--"

"And a handful!" said Lord Grosville.

"Oh, quite plainly a handful," said Ashe, rather absently. Then the

memory of Kitty's entry recurred to them both, and they laughed.

"Not much shyness left in that young woman--eh?" said the old man. "She

tells my girls such stories of her French doings--my wife's had to stop

it. She seems to have had all sorts of love-affairs already. And, of

course, she'll have any number over here--sure to. Some unscrupulous

fellow'll get hold of her, for naturally the right sort won't marry her.

I don't know what we can do. Adelina offered to take her altogether. But

that woman wouldn't hear of it. She wrote Lina rather a good letter--on

her dignity--and that kind of thing. We gave her an opening, and, by

Jove! she took it."

"And meanwhile Lady Kitty has no dealings with her step-sister?"

"You heard what she said. Extraordinary girl! to let the thing out plump

like that. Just like the blood. They say anything that comes into their

heads. If we had known that Alice was to be with the Sowerbys this

week-end, my wife would certainly have put Kitty off. It would be

uncommonly awkward if they were to meet--here for instance. Hullo! Is it

getting late?"

For the whist-players at the end of the library had pushed back their

chairs, and men were strolling back from the billiard-room.

"I am afraid Lady Kitty understands there is something wrong with her

mother's position," said Ashe, as they rose.

"I dare say. Brought up in Paris, you see," said the white-haired

Englishman, with a shrug. "Of course, she knows everything she

shouldn't."

"Brought up in a convent, please," said Ashe, smiling. "And I thought

the French _girl_ was the most innocent and ignorant thing alive."

Lord Grosville received the remark with derision.

"You ask my wife what she thinks about French convents. She knows--she's

had lots of Catholic relations. She'll tell you tales."

Ashe thought, however, that he could trust himself to see that she did

nothing of the sort.

* * * * *

The smoking-room broke up late, but the new Under-secretary sat up still

later, reading and smoking in his bedroom. A box of Foreign Office

papers lay on his table. He went through them with a keen sense of

pleasure, enjoying his new work and his own competence to do it, of

which, notwithstanding his remarks to Mary Lyster, he was not really at

all in doubt. Then when his comments were done, and the papers replaced

in the order in which they would now go up to the Secretary of State, he

felt the spring night oppressively mild, and walking to the window, he

threw it wide open.

He looked out upon a Dutch garden, full of spring flowers in bloom. In

the midst was a small fountain, which murmured to itself through the

night. An orangery or conservatory, of a charming eighteenth-century

design, ran round the garden in a semicircle, its flat pilasters and

mouldings of yellow stone taking under the moonlight the color and the

delicacy of ivory. Beyond the terrace which bordered the garden, the

ground fell to a river, of which the reaches, now dazzling, now sombre,

now slipping secret under woods, and now silverly open to the gentle

slopes of the park, brought wildness and romance into a scene that had

else been tame. Beyond the river on a rising ground was a village church

with a spire. The formal garden, the Georgian conservatory, the park,

the river, the church--they breathed England and the traditional English

life. All that they implied, of custom and inheritance, of strength and

narrowness, of cramping prejudice and stubborn force, was very familiar

to Ashe, and on the whole very congenial. He was glad to be an

Englishman and a member of an English government. The ironic mood which

was tolerably constant in him did not in the least interfere with his

normal enjoyment of normal goods. He saw himself often as a shade among

shadows, as an actor among actors; but the play was good all the same.

That a man should know himself to be a fool was in his eyes, as it was

in Lord Melbourne's, the first of necessities. But fool or no fool, let

him find the occupations that suited him, and pursue them. On those

terms life was still amply worth living, and ginger was still hot in the

mouth.

This was his usual philosophy. Religiously he was a sceptic, enormously

interested in religion. Should he ever become Prime Minister, as Lady

Tranmore prophesied, he would know much more theology than the bishops

he might be called on to appoint. Politically, at the same time, he was

an aristocrat, enormously interested in liberty. The absurdities of his

own class were still more plain to him perhaps than the absurdities of

the populace. But had he lived a couple of generations earlier he would

have gone with passion for Catholic emancipation, and boggled at the

Reform Bill. And if fate had thrown him on earlier days still, he would

not, like Falkland, have died ingeminating peace; he would have fought;

but on which side, no friend of his--up till now--could have been quite

sure. To have the reputation of an idler, and to be in truth a plodding

and unwearied student; this, at any rate, pleased him. To avow an

enthusiasm, or an affection, generally seemed to him an indelicacy; only

two or three people in the world knew what was the real quality of his

heart. Yet no man feigns shirking without in some measure learning to

shirk; and there were certain true indolences and sybaritisms in Ashe of

which he was fully and contemptuously aware, without either wishing or

feeling himself able to break the yoke of them.

At the present moment, however, he was rather conscious of much unusual

stirring and exaltation of personality. As he stood looking out into the

English night the currents of his blood ran free and fast. Never had he

felt the natural appetite for living so strong in him, combined with

what seemed to be at once a divination of coming change, and a thirst

for it. Was it the mere advancement of his fortunes--or something

infinitely subtler and sweeter? It was as though waves of softness and

of yearning welled up from some unknown source, seeking an object and an

outlet.

As he stood there dreaming, he suddenly became conscious of sounds in

the room overhead. Or rather in the now absolute stillness of the rest

of the house he realized that the movements and voices above him, which

had really been going on since he entered his room, persisted when

everything else had died away.

Two people were talking; or rather one voice ran on perpetually, broken

at intervals by the other. He began to suspect to whom the voice

belonged; and as he did so, the window above his own was thrown open. He

stepped back involuntarily, but not before he had caught a few words in

French, spoken apparently by Lady Kitty.

"Ciel! what a night!--and how the flowers smell! And the stars--I adore

the stars! Mademoiselle--come here! Mademoiselle! answer me--I won't

tell tales--now do you--_really and truly_--believe in God?"

A laugh, which was a laugh of pleasure, ran through Ashe, as he

hurriedly put out his lights.

"Tormentor!" he said to himself--"must you put a woman through her

theological paces at this time of night? Can't you go to sleep, you

little whirlwind?--What's to be done? If I shut my window the noise will

scare her. But I can't stand eavesdropping here."

He withdrew softly from the window and began to undress. But Lady Kitty

was leaning out, and her voice carried amazingly. Heard in this way

also, apart from form and face, it became a separate living thing. Ashe

stood arrested, his watch that he was winding up in his hand. He had

known the voice till now as something sharp and light, the sign surely

of a chatterer and a flirt. To-night, as Kitty made use of it to expound

her own peculiar theology to the French governess--whereof a few

fragments now and then floated down to Ashe--nothing could have been

more musical, melancholy, caressing. A voice full of sex, and the spell

of sex.

What had she been talking of all these hours to mademoiselle? A lady

whom she could never have set eyes on before this visit. He thought of

her face, in the drawing-room, as she had spoken of her sister--of her

eyes, so full of a bright feverish pain, which had hung upon his own.

Had she, indeed, been confiding all her home secrets to this stranger?

Ashe felt a movement of distaste, almost of disgust. Yet he remembered

that it was by her unconventionality, her lack of all proper reticence,

or, as many would have said, all delicate feeling, that she had made her

first impression upon him. Ay, that had been an impression--an

impression indeed! He realized the fact profoundly, as he stood

lingering in the darkness, trying not to hear the voice that thrilled

him.

At last!--was she going to bed?

"Ah!--but I am a pig, to keep you up like this! Allez dormir!" (The

sound of a kiss.) "I? Oh no! Why should one go to bed? It is in the

night one begins to live."

She fell to humming a little French tune, then broke off.

"You remember? You promise? You have the letter?"

Asseverations apparently from mademoiselle, and a mention of eight

o'clock, followed by remorse from Kitty.

"Eight o'clock! And I keep you like this. I am a brute beast!

Allez--allez vite!" And quick steps scudded across the floor above,

followed by the shutting of a door.

Kitty, however, came back to the window, and Ashe could still hear her

sighing and talking to herself.

What had she been plotting? A letter? Conveyed by mademoiselle? To whom?

* * * * *

Long after all sounds above had ceased Ashe still lay awake, thinking of

the story he had heard from Lord Grosville. Certainly, if he had known

it, he would never have gone familiarly to Madame d'Estrées' house.

Laxity, for a man of his type, is one thing; lying, meanness, and

cruelty are another. What could be done for this poor child in her

strange and sinister position? He was ironically conscious of a sudden

heat of missionary zeal. For if the creature to be saved had not

possessed such a pair of eyes--so slim a neck--such a haunting and

teasing personality--what then?

The question presently plunged with him into sleep. But he had not

forgotten it when he awoke.

* * * * *

He had just finished dressing next morning, when he chanced to see from

the front window of his room, which commanded the main stretch of the

park, the figure of a lady on one of the paths. She seemed to be

returning from the farther end of a long avenue, and was evidently

hurrying to reach the house. As she approached, however, she turned

aside into a shrubbery walk and was soon lost to view. But Ashe had

recognized Mademoiselle D. The matter of the letter recurred to him. He

guessed that she had already delivered it. But where?

At breakfast Lady Kitty did not appear. Ashe made inquiries of the

younger Miss Grosville, who replied with some tartness that she supposed

Kitty had a cold, and hurried off herself to dress for Sunday-school. It

was not at all the custom for young ladies to breakfast in bed on

Sundays at Grosville Park, and Lady Grosville's brow was clouded. Ashe

felt it a positive effort to tell her that he was not going to church,

and when she had marshalled her flock and carried them off, those left

behind knew themselves, indeed, as heathens and publicans.

Ashe wandered out with some official papers and a pipe into the spring

sunshine. Mr. Kershaw, the editor, would gladly have caught him for a

political talk. But Ashe would not be caught. As to the interests of

England in the Persian Gulf, both they and Mr. Kershaw might for the

moment go hang. Would Lady Kitty meet him in the old garden at

eleven-thirty, or would she not? That was the only thing that mattered.

However, it was still more than an hour to the time mentioned. Ashe

spent a while in roaming a wood delicately pied with primroses and

anemones, and then sauntered back into the gardens, which were old and

famous.

Suddenly, as he came upon a terrace bordered by a thick yew hedge, and

descending by steps to a lower terrace, he became aware of voices in a

strange tone and key--not loud, but, as it were, intensified far beyond

the note of ordinary talk. Ashe stood still; for he had recognized the

voice of Lady Kitty. But before he had made up his mind what to do a

lady began to ascend the steps which connected the upper terrace with

the lower. She came straight towards him, and Ashe looked at her with

astonishment. She was not a member of the Grosville house party, and

Ashe had never seen her before. Yet in her pale, unhappy face there was

something that recalled another person; something, too, in her gait and

her passionate energy of movement. She swept past him, and he saw that

she was tall and thin, and dressed in deep mourning. Her eyes were set

on some inner vision; he felt that she scarcely saw him. She passed like

an embodied grief--menacing and lamentable.

Something like a cry pursued her up the steps. But she did not turn. She

walked swiftly on, and was soon lost to sight in the trees.

Ashe hesitated a moment, then hurried down the steps.

On a stone seat beneath the yew hedge, Kitty Bristol lay prone. He heard

her sobs, and they went most strangely through his heart.

"Lady Kitty!" he said, as he stood beside her and bent over her.

She looked up, and showed no surprise. Her face was bathed in tears, but

her hand sought his piteously and drew him towards her.

"I have seen my sister," she said, "and she hates me. What have I done?

I think I shall die of despair!"

V

The effect of the few sobbing words, with which Kitty Bristol had

greeted his presence beside her, upon the feeling of William Ashe was

both sharp and deep, for they seemed already to imply a peculiar

relation, a special link between them. Had it not, indeed, begun in that

very moment at St. James's Place when he had first caught sight of her,

sitting forlorn in her white dress?--when she had "willed" him to come

to her, and he came? Surely--though as to this he had his qualms--she

could not have spoken with this abandonment to any other of her new

English acquaintances? To Darrell, for instance, who was expected at

Grosville Park that evening. No! From the beginning she had turned to

him, William Ashe; she had been conscious of the same mutual

understanding, the same sympathy in difference that he himself felt.

It was, at any rate, with the feeling of one whose fate has most

strangely, most unexpectedly overtaken him that he sat down beside her.

His own pulses were running at a great rate; but there was to be no sign

of it for her. He tried, indeed, to calm her by that mere cheerful

strength and vitality of which he was so easily master. "Why should you

be in despair?" he said, bending towards her. "Tell me. Let me try and

help you. Was your sister unkind to you?"

Kitty made no reply at once. The tears that brimmed her large eyes

slipped down her cheeks without disfiguring her. She was looking

absently, intently, into a dark depth of wood as though she sought there

for some truth that escaped her--truth of the past or of the present.

"I don't know," she said, at last, shaking her head, "I don't know

whether it was unkind. Perhaps it was only what we deserve, maman and

I."

"You!" cried Ashe.

"Yes," she said, passionately. "Who's going to separate between maman

and me? If she's done mean, shocking things, the people she's done them

to will hate me too. They _shall_ hate me! It's right."

She turned to him violently. She was very white, and her little hands as

she sat there before him, proudly erect, twisted a lace handkerchief

between them that would soon be in tatters. Somehow Ashe winced before

the wreck of the handkerchief; what need to ruin the pretty, fragile

thing?

"I am quite sure no one will ever hate you for what you haven't done,"

he said, steadily. "That would be abominably unfair. But, you see, I

don't understand--and I don't like--I don't wish--to ask questions."

"_Do_ ask questions!" she cried, looking at him almost reproachfully.

"That's just what I want you to do--Only," she added, hanging her head

in depression, "I shouldn't know what to answer. I am played with, and

treated as a baby! There is something horrible the matter--and no one

trusts me--every one keeps me in the dark. No one ever thinks whether I

am miserable or not."

She raised her hands to her eyes and vehemently wiped away her tears

with the tattered lace handkerchief. In all these words and actions,

however, she was graceful and touching, because she was natural. She was

not posing or conscious, she was hiding nothing. Yet Ashe felt certain

she could act a part magnificently; only it would not be for the lie's

sake, but for the sake of some romantic impulse or imagination.

"Why should you torment yourself so?" he asked her, kindly. Her hand had

dropped and lay beside her on the bench. To his own amazement he found

himself clasping it. "Isn't it better to forget old griefs? You can't

help what happened years ago--you can't undo it. You've got to live your

own life--_happily_! And I just wish you'd set about it."

He smiled at her, and there were few faces more attractive than his when

he let his natural softness have its way, without irony. She let her

eyes be drawn to his, and as they met he saw a flush rise in her clear

skin and spread to the pale gold of her hair. The man in him was

marvellously pleased by that flush--fascinated, indeed. But she gave him

small time to observe it; she drew herself impatiently away.

"Of course, you don't understand a word about it," she said, "or you

couldn't talk like that. But I'll tell you." Her eyes, half miserable,

half audacious, returned to him. "My sister--came here--because I sent

for her. I made mademoiselle go with a letter. Of course, I knew there

was a mystery--I knew the Grosvilles did not want us to meet--I knew

that she and maman hated each other. But maman will tell me nothing--and

I have a _right_ to know."

"No, you have no right to know," said Ashe, gravely.

She looked at him wildly.

"I have--I have!" she repeated, passionately. "Well, I told my sister to

meet me here--I had forgotten, you see, all about you! My mind was so

full of Alice. And when she came I felt as if it was a dream--a

horrible, tragic dream. You know--she is _so_ like me--which means, I

suppose, that we are both like papa. Only her face--it's not handsome,

oh no--but it's stern--and--yes, noble! I was proud of her. I would like

to have gone on my knee and kissed her dress. But she would not take my

hand--she would hardly speak to me. She said she had come, because it

was best, now that I was in England, that we should meet once, and

understand that we _couldn't_ meet--that we could never, never be

friends. She said that she hated my mother--that for years she had kept

silence, but that now she meant to punish maman--to drive her from

London. And then"--the girl's lips trembled under the memory--"she came

close to me, and she looked into my eyes, and she said, 'Yes, we're like

each other---we're like our father--and it would be better for us both

if we had never been born--'"

"Ah, cruel!" cried Ashe, involuntarily, and once more his hand found

Kitty's small fingers and pressed them in his.

Kitty looked at him with a strange, exalted look.

"No. I think it's true. I often think I'm not made to be happy. I can't

ever be happy--it's not in me."

"It's in you to say foolish things then!" said Ashe, lightly, and

crossing his arms he tried to assume the practical elder-brotherly air,

which he felt befitted the situation--if anything befitted it. For in

truth it seemed to him one singularly confused and ugly. Their talk

floated above tragic depths, guessed at by him, wholly unknown to her.

And yet her youth shrank from it knew not what--"as an animal shrinks

from shadows in the twilight." She seemed to him to sit enwrapped in a

vague cloud of shame, resenting and hating it, yet not able to escape

from thinking and talking of it. But she must not talk of it.

She did not answer his last remark for a little while. She sat looking

before her, overwhelmed, it seemed, by an inward rush of images and

sensations. Till, with a sudden movement, she turned to him and said,

smiling, quite in her ordinary voice:

"Do you know why I shall never be happy? It is because I have such a bad

temper."

"Have you?" said Ashe, smiling.

She gave him a curious look.

"You don't believe it? If you had been in the convent, you would have

believed it. I'm mad sometimes--quite mad; with pride, I suppose, and

vanity. The Soeurs said it was that."

"They had to explain it somehow," said Ashe. "But I am quite sure that

if I lived in a convent I should have a furious temper."

"You!" she said, half contemptuously. "You couldn't be ill-tempered

anywhere. That's the one thing I don't like about you--you're too

calm--too--too satisfied. It's--Well! you said a sharp thing to me, so I

don't see why I shouldn't say one to you. You shouldn't look as though

you enjoyed your life so much. It's _bourgeois_! It is, indeed." And she

frowned upon him with a little extravagant air that amused him.

By some prescience, she had put on that morning a black dress of thin

material, made with extreme simplicity. No flounces, no fanfaronnade. A

little girlish dress, that made the girlish figure seem even frailer and

lighter than he remembered it the night before in the splendors of her

Paris gown. Her large black hat emphasized the whiteness of her brow,

the brilliance of her most beautiful eyes; and then all the rest was

insubstantial sprite and airy nothing, to be crushed in one hand. And

yet what untamed, indomitable things breathed from it--a self surely

more self, more intensely, obstinately alive than any he had yet known.

Her attack had brought the involuntary blood to his cheeks, which

annoyed him. But he invited her to say why cheerfulness was a vice. She

replied that no one should look success--as much as he did.

"And you scorn success?"

"Scorn it!" She drew a long breath, clasped both her hands above her

head, then slowly let the thin arms fall again. "Scorn it! What

nonsense! But everybody who hasn't got it hates those who have."

"Don't hate me!" said Ashe, quickly.

"Yes," she said, with stubbornness, "I must. Do you know why I was such

a wild-cat at school? Because some of the other girls were more

important than I--much more important--and richer--and more

beautiful--and people paid them more attention. And that seemed to

_burn_ the heart in me." She pressed her hands to her breast with a

passionate gesture. "You know the French word _panache_? Well, that's

what I care for --that's what I _adore_! To be the first--the best--the

most distinguished. To be envied--and pointed at--obeyed when I lift my

finger--and then to come to some great, glorious, tragic end!"

Ashe moved impatiently.

"Lady Kitty, I don't like to hear you talk like this. It's wild, and

it's also--I beg your pardon--"

"In bad taste?" she said, catching him up breathlessly. "That's what you

meant, isn't it? You said it to me before, when I called you handsome."

"Pshaw!" he said, in vexation. She watched him throw himself back and

feel for his cigarette-case; a gesture of her hand gave him leave; she

waited, smiling, till he had taken a few calming whiffs. Then she gently

moved towards him.

"Don't be angry with me!" she said, in a sweet, low voice. "Don't you

understand how hard it is--to have that nature--and then to come here

out of the convent--where one had lived on dreams--and find one's

self--"

She turned her head away. Ashe put down his new-lit cigarette.

"Find yourself?" he repeated.

"Everybody scorns me!" she said, her brow drooping.

Ashe exclaimed.

"You know it's true. My mother is not received. Can you deny that?"

"She has many friends," said Ashe.

"She is _not received_. When I speak of her no one answers me. Lady

Grosville asked me here--_me_--out of charity. It would be thought a

disgrace to marry me--"

"Look here, Lady Kitty!--"

"And I"--she wrung her small hands, as though she clasped the necks of

her enemies--"I would never _look_ at a man who did not think it the

glory of his life to win me. So you see, I shall never marry. But then

the dreadful thing is--"

She let him see a white, stormy face.

"That I have no loyalty to maman--I--I don't think I even love her."

Ashe surveyed her gravely.

"You don't mean that," he said.

"I think I do," she persisted. "I had a horrid childhood. I won't tell

tales; but, you see, I don't _know_ maman. I know the Soeurs much

better. And then for some one you don't know--to have to--to have to

bear--this horrible thing--"

She buried her face in her hands. Ashe looked at her in perplexity.

"You sha'n't bear anything horrible," he said, with energy. "There are

plenty of people who will take care of that. Do you mind telling

me--have there been special difficulties just lately?"

"Oh yes," she said, calmly, looking up, "awful! Maman's debts

are--well--ridiculous. For that alone I don't think she'll be able to

stay in London--apart from--Alice."

The name recalled all she had just passed through, and her face

quivered. "What will she do?" she said, under her breath. "How will she

punish us?--and why?--for what?"

Her dread, her ignorance, her fierce, bruised vanity, her struggling

pride, her helplessness, appealed amazingly to the man beside her. He

began to talk to her very gently and wisely, begging her to let the past

alone, to think only what could be done to help the present. In the

first place, would she not let his mother be of use to her?

He could answer for Lady Tranmore. Why shouldn't Lady Kitty spend the

summer with her in Scotland? No doubt Madame d'Estrées would be abroad.

"Then I must go with her," said Kitty.

Ashe hesitated.

"Of course, if she wishes it."

"But I don't know that she will wish it. She is not very fond of me,"

said Kitty, doubtfully. "Yes, I would like to stay with Lady Tranmore.

But will your cousin be there?"

"Miss Lyster?"

Kitty nodded.

"How can I tell? Of course, she is often there."

"It is quite curious," said Kitty, after reflection, "how we dislike

each other. And it is so odd. You know most people like me!"

She looked up at him without a trace of coquetry, rather with a certain

timidity that feared possible rebuff. "That's always been my

difficulty," she went on, "till now. Everybody spoils me. I always get

my own way. In the convent I was indulged and flattered, and then they

wondered that I made all sorts of follies. I want a guide--that's quite

certain--somebody to tell me what to do."

"I would offer myself for the post," said Ashe, "but that I feel

perfectly sure that you would never follow anybody's advice in

anything."

"Yes, I would," she said, wistfully. "I would--"

Ashe's face changed.

"Ah, if you would--"

She sprang up. "Do you see "--she pointed to some figures on a distant

path--"they are coming back from church. You understand?--_nobody_ must

know about my sister. It will come round to Aunt Lina, of course; but I

hope it'll be when I'm gone. If she knew now, I should go back to London

to-day."

Ashe made it clear to her that he would be discretion itself. They left

the bench, but, as they began to ascend the steps, Kitty turned back.

"I wish I hadn't seen her," she said, in a miserable tone, the tears

flooding once more into her eyes.

Ashe looked at her with great kindness, but without speaking. The moment

of sharp pain passed, and she moved on languidly beside him. But there

was an infection in his strong, handsome presence, and her smiles soon

came back. By the time they neared the house, indeed, she seemed to be

in wild spirits again.

Did he know, she asked him, that three more guests were coming that

afternoon--Mr. Darrell, Mr. Louis Harman, _and_--Mr. Geoffrey Cliffe?

She laid an emphasis on the last name, which made Ashe say, carelessly:

"You want to meet him so much?"

"Of course. Doesn't all the world?"

Ashe replied that he could only answer for himself, and as far as he was

concerned he could do very well without Cliffe's company at all times.

Whereupon Kitty protested with fire that other men were jealous of such

a famous person because women liked him--because--

"Because the man's a coxcomb and the women spoil him?"

"A coxcomb!"

Kitty was up in arms.

"Pray, is he not a great traveller?--_a very_ great traveller?" she

asked, with indignation.

"Certainly, by his own account."

"And a most brilliant writer?"

"Macaulayese," said Ashe, perversely, "and not very good at that."

Kitty was at first struck dumb, and then began a voluble protest against

unfairness so monstrous. Did not all intelligent people read and admire?

It was mere jealousy, she repeated, to deny the gentleman's claims.

Ashe let her talk and quote and excite herself, applying every now and

then a little sly touch of the goad, to make her still run on, and so

forget the tragic hour which had overshadowed her. And meanwhile all he

cared for was to watch the flashing of her face and eyes, and the play

of the wind in her hair, and the springing grace with which she moved.

Poor child!--it all came back to that--poor child!--what was to be done

with her?

* * * * *

At luncheon--the Sunday luncheon--which still, at Grosville Park, as in

the early Victorian days of Lord Grosville's mother, consisted of a huge

baronial sirloin to which all else upon the varied table appeared as

appurtenance and appendage, Ashe allowed himself the inward reflection

that the Grosville Park Sundays were degenerating. Both Lord and Lady

Grosville had been good hosts in their day; and the downrightness of the

wife had been as much to the taste of many as the agreeable gossip of

the husband. But on this occasion both were silent and absent-minded.

Lady Grosville showed no generalship in placing her guests; the wrong

people sat next to each other, and the whole party dragged--without a

leader.

And certainly Kitty Bristol did nothing to enliven it. She sat very

silent, her black dress changing her a good deal, to Ashe's thinking,

bringing back, as he chose to fancy, the pale convent girl. Was it so

that she went through her pious exercises?--by-the-way, she was, of

course, a Catholic?--said her lessons, and went to her confessor? Had

the French cousin with whom she rode stag-hunting ever seen her like

this? No; Ashe felt certain that "Henri" had never seen her, except as a

fashion-plate, or _en amazone_. He could have made nothing of this ghost

in black--this distinguished, piteous, little ghost.

After luncheon it became tolerably clear to Ashe that Lady Grosville's

preoccupation had a cause. And presently catching him alone in the

library, whither he had retired with some official papers, she closed

the door with deliberate care, and stood before him.

"I see you are interested in Kitty, and I feel as if I must tell you,

and ask your opinion. William, do you know what that child has been

doing?"

He looked up from his writing.

"Ah!--what have you been discovering?"

"Grosville told you the story last night."

Ashe nodded.

"Well--Kitty wrote to Alice this morning--and they met. Alice has kept

her room since--prostrate--so the Sowerbys tell me. I have just had a

note from Mrs. Sowerby. Wasn't it an extraordinary, an indelicate thing

to do?"

Ashe studied the frowning lady a moment--so large and daunting in her

black silk and white lace. She seemed to suggest all those aspects of

the English Sunday for which he had most secret dislike--its Pharisaism

and dulness and heavy meals. He felt himself through and through Lady

Kitty's champion.

"I should have thought it very natural," was his reply.

Lady Grosville threw up her hands.

"Natural!--when she knows--"

"How can she know?" cried Ashe, hotly. "How can such a child know or

guess anything? She only knows that there is some black charge against

her mother, on which no one will enlighten her. How can they? But

meanwhile her mother is ostracized, and she feels herself dragged into

the disgrace, not understanding why or wherefore. Could anything be more

pathetic--more touching?"

In his heat of feeling he got up, and began to pace up and down. Lady

Grosville's countenance expressed first astonishment--then wavering.

"Oh--of course, it's very sad," she said--"extremely sad. But I should

have thought Kitty was clever enough to understand at least that Alice

must have some grave reason for breaking with her mother--"

"Don't you all forget what a child she is," said Ashe, indignantly--"not

yet nineteen!"

"Yes, that's true," said Lady Grosville, grudgingly. "I must confess I

find it difficult to judge her fairly. She's so different from my own

girls."

Ashe hastily agreed. Then it struck him as odd that he should have

fallen so quickly into this position of Kitty's defender with her

father's family; and he drew in his horns. He resumed his work, and Lady

Grosville sat for a while, her hands in her lap, quietly observing him.

At last she said:

"So you think, William, I had better leave Kitty alone?"

"About what?" Ashe raised his curly head with a laugh. "Don't put too

much responsibility on me. I know nothing about young ladies."

"I don't know that I do--much," said Lady Grosville, candidly. "My own

daughters are so exceptional."

Ashe held his peace. Distant cousins as they were, he hardly knew the

Grosville girls apart, and had never yet grasped any reason why he

should.

"At any rate, I see clearly," said Lady Grosville, after another pause,

"that you're very sorry for Kitty. Of course, it's very nice of you, and

I find it's what most people feel."

"Hang it! dear Lady Grosville, why shouldn't they?" said Ashe, turning

round on his chair. "If ever there was a forlorn little person on earth,

I thought Lady Kitty was that person at lunch to-day."

"And after that absurd exhibition last night!" said Lady Grosville, with

a shrug. "You never know where to have her. You think she looked ill?"

"I am sure she has got a splitting headache," said Ashe, boldly. "And

why you and Grosville shouldn't be as sorry for her as for Lady Alice I

can't imagine. _She's_ done nothing."

"No, that's true," said Lady Grosville, as she rose. Then she added:

"I'll go and see if she has a headache. You must consult with us,

William; you know the mother so well."

"Oh, I'm no good!" said Ashe, with energy. "But I'm sure that kindness

would pay with Lady Kitty."

He smiled at her, wishing to Heaven she would go.

Lady Grosville stared.

"I hope we are always kind to her," she said, with a touch of

haughtiness. And then the library door closed behind her.

* * * * *

"Kindness" was indeed, that afternoon, the order of the day, as from the

Grosvilles to Lady Kitty. Ashe wondered how she liked it. The girls

followed her about with shawls. Lady Grosville installed her on a sofa

in the back drawing-room. A bottle of sal-volatile appeared, and

Caroline Grosville, instead of going twice to Sunday-school, devoted

herself to fanning Kitty, though the weather--which was sunny, with a

sharp east wind--suggested, to Ashe's thinking, fires rather than fans.

He was himself carried off for the customary Sunday walk, Mr. Kershaw

being now determined to claim the sacred rights of the press. The

walkers left the house by a garden door, to reach which they had to pass

through the farther drawing-room. Kitty, a picturesque figure on the

sofa, nodded farewell to Ashe, and then, unseen by Caroline Grosville,

who sat behind her, shot him a last look which drove him to a

precipitate exit lest the inward laugh should out.

The walk through the flat Cambridgeshire country was long and strenuous.

Though for at least half of it the active journalist who was Ashe's

companion conceived the poorest opinion of the new minister. Ashe knew

nothing; had no opinions; cared for nothing, except now and then for the

stalking of an unfamiliar bird, or the antics of the dogs, or tales of

horse-racing, of which he talked with a fervor entirely denied to those

high political topics of which Kershaw's ardent soul was full.

Again and again did the journalist put them under his nose in their most

attractive guise. In vain; Ashe would have none of them. Till suddenly a

chance word started an Indian frontier question, vastly important, and

totally unknown to the English public. Ashe casually began to talk; the

trickle became a stream, and presently he was holding forth with an

impetuosity, a knowledge, a matured and careful judgment that fairly

amazed the man beside him.

The long road, bordered by the flat fen meadows, the wide silver sky,

the gently lengthening day, all passed unnoticed. The journalist found

himself in the grip of a _mind_--strong, active, rich. He gave himself

up with docility, yet with a growing astonishment, and when they stood

once more on the steps of the house he said to his companion:

"You must have followed these matters for years. Why have you never

spoken in the House, or written anything?"

Ashe's aspect changed at once.

"What would have been the good?" he said, with his easy smile. "The

fellows who didn't know wouldn't have believed me; and the fellows who

knew didn't want telling."

A shade of impatience showed in Kershaw's aspect.

"I thought," he said, "ours was government by discussion."

Ashe laughed, and, turning on the steps, he pointed to the splendid

gardens and finely wooded park.

"Or government by country-houses--which? If you support us in this--as I

gather you will--this walk will have been worth a debate--now won't it?"

The flattered journalist smiled, and they entered the house. From the

inner hall Lord Grosville perceived them.

"Geoffrey Cliffe's arrived," he said to Ashe, as they reached him.

"Has he?" said Ashe, and turned to go up-stairs.

But Kershaw showed a lively interest. "You mean the traveller?" he asked

of his host.

"I do. As mad as usual," said the old man. "He and my niece Kitty make a

pair."

VI

When Ashe returned to the drawing-room he found it filled with the sound

of talk and laughter. But it was a talk and laughter in which the

Grosville family seemed to have itself but little part. Lady Grosville

sat stiffly on an early Victorian sofa, her spectacles on her nose,

reading the _Times_ of the preceding day, or appearing to read it. Amy

Grosville, the eldest girl, was busy in a corner, putting the finishing

touches to a piece of illumination; while Caroline, seated on the floor,

was showing the small child of a neighbor how to put a picture-puzzle

together. Lord Grosville was professedly in a farther room, talking with

the Austrian count; but every other minute he strolled restlessly into

the big drawing-room, and stood at the edge of the talk and laughter,

only to turn on his heel again and go back to the count--who meanwhile

appeared in the opening between the two rooms, his hands on his hips,

eagerly watching Kitty Bristol and her companions, while waiting, as

courtesy bade him, for the return of his host.

Ashe at once divined that the Grosville family were in revolt. Nor had

he to look far to discover the cause.

Was that astonishing young lady in truth identical with the pensive

figure of the morning? Kitty had doffed her black, and she wore a

"demi-toilette" gown of the utmost elegance, of which the expensiveness

had, no doubt, already sunk deep into Lady Grosville's soul. At

Grosville Park the new fashion of "tea-gowns" was not favorably

regarded. It was thought to be a mere device of silly and extravagant

women, and an "afternoon dress," though of greater pretensions than a

morning gown, was still a sober affair, not in any way to be confounded

with those decorative effects that nature and sound sense reserved for

the evening.

But Kitty's dress was of some white silky material; and it displayed her

slender throat and some portion of her thin white arms. The Dean's wife,

Mrs. Winston, as she secretly studied it, felt an inward satisfaction;

for here at last was one of those gowns she had once or twice gazed on

with a covetous awe in the shop-windows of the Rue de la Paix, brought

down to earth, and clothing a simple mortal. They were then real, and

they could be worn by real women; which till now the Dean's wife had

scarcely believed.

Alack! how becoming were these concoctions to minxes with fair hair and

sylphlike frames! Kitty was radiant, triumphant; and Ashe was certain

that Lady Grosville knew it, however she might barricade herself behind

the _Times_. The girl's slim fingers gesticulated in aid of her tongue;

one tiny foot swung lightly over the other; the glistening folds of the

silk wrapped her in a shimmering whiteness, above which the fair

head--negligently thrown back--shone out on a red background, made by

the velvet chair in which she sat.

The Dean was placed close beside her, and was clearly enjoying himself

enormously. And in front of her, absorbed in her, engaged, indeed, in

hot and furious debate with her, stood the great man who had just

arrived.

"How do you do, Cliffe?" said Ashe, as he approached.

Geoffrey Cliffe turned sharply, and a perfunctory greeting passed

between the two men.

"When did you arrive?" said Ashe, as he threw himself into an arm-chair.

"Last Tuesday. But that don't matter," said Cliffe,

impatiently--"nothing matters--except that I must somehow defeat Lady

Kitty!"

And he stood, looking down upon the girl in front of him, his hands on

his sides, his queer countenance twitching with suppressed laughter. An

odd figure, tall, spare, loosely jointed, surmounted by a pale parchment

face, which showed a somewhat protruding chin, a long and delicate nose,

and fine brows under a strange overhanging mass of fair hair. He had the

dissipated, battered look of certain Vandyck cavaliers, and certainly no

handsomeness of any accepted kind. But as Ashe well knew, the aspect and

personality of Geoffrey Cliffe possessed for innumerable men and women,

in English "society" and out of it, a fascination it was easier to laugh

at than to explain.

Lady Kitty had eyes certainly for no one else. When he spoke of

"defeating" her, she laughed her defiance, and a glance of battle passed

between her and Cliffe. Cliffe, still holding her with his look,

considered what new ground to break.

"What is the subject?" said Ashe.

"That men are vainer than women," said Kitty. "It's so true, it's hardly

worth saying--isn't it? Mr. Cliffe talks nonsense about our love of

clothes--and of being admired. As if that were vanity! Of course it's

only our sense of duty."

"Duty?" cried Cliffe, twisting his mustache. "To whom?"

"To the men, of course! If we didn't like clothes, if we didn't like

being admired--where would you be?"

"Personally, I could get on," said Cliffe. "You expect us to be too much

on our knees."

"As if we should ever get you there if it didn't amuse you!" said Kitty.

"Hypocrites! If we don't dress, paint, chatter, and tell lies for you,

you won't look at us--and if we do--"

"Of course, it all depends on how well it's done," threw in Cliffe.

Kitty laughed.

"That's judging by results. I look to the motive. I repeat, if I powder

and paint, it's not because I'm vain, but because it's my painful duty

to give you pleasure."

"And if it doesn't give me pleasure?"

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Call me stupid then--not vain. I ought to have done it better."

"In any case," said Ashe, "it's your duty to please us?"

"Yes--" sighed Kitty. "Worse luck!"

And she sank softly back in her chair, her eyes shining under the

stimulus of the laugh that ran through her circle. The Dean joined in it

uneasily, conscious, no doubt, of the sharp, crackling movements by

which in the distance Lady Grosville was dumbly expressing

herself--through the _Times_. Cliffe looked at the small figure a

moment, then seized a chair and sat down in front of her, astride.

"I wonder why you want to please us?" he said, abruptly, his magnificent

blue eyes upon her.

"Ah!" said Kitty, throwing up her hands, "if we only knew!"

"You find it in the tragedy of your sex?"

"Or comedy," said the Dean, rising. "I take you at your word, Lady

Kitty. To-night it will be your duty to please _me_. Remember, you

promised to say us some more French." He lifted an admonitory finger.

"I don't know any 'Athalie,'" said Kitty, demurely, crossing her hands

upon her knee.

The Dean smiled to himself as he crossed the room to Lady Grosville, and

endeavored by an impartial criticism of the new curate's manner and

voice, as they had revealed themselves in church that morning, to

distract her attention from her niece.

A hopeless task--for Kitty's personality was of the kind which absorbs,

engulfs attention, do what the by-stander will. Eyes and ears were drawn

perforce into the little whirlpool that she made, their owners yielding

them, now with delight, now with repulsion.

Mary Lyster, for instance, came in presently, fresh from a walk with

Lady Edith Manley. She, too, had changed her dress. But it was a

discreet and reasonable change, and Lady Grosville looked at her soft

gray gown with its muslin collar and cuffs--delicately embroidered, yet

of a nunlike cut and air notwithstanding--with a hot energy of approval,

provoked entirely by Kitty's audacities. Mary meanwhile raised her

eyebrows gently at the sight of Kitty. She swept past the group, giving

a cool greeting to Geoffrey Cliffe, and presently settled herself in the

farther room, attended by Louis Harman and Darrell, who had just arrived

by the afternoon train. Clearly she observed Kitty and observed her with

dislike. The attitude of her companions was not so simple.

"What an amazing young woman!" said Harman, presently, under his breath,

yet open-mouthed. "I suppose she and Cliffe are old friends."

"I believe they never met before," said Mary.

Darrell laughed.

"Lady Kitty makes short work of the preliminaries," he said; "she told

me the other night life wasn't long enough to begin with talk about the

weather."

"The weather?" said Harman. "At the present moment she and Cliffe seem

to be discussing the 'Dame aux Camélias.' Since when do they take young

girls to see that kind of thing in Paris?"

Miss Lyster gave a little cough, and bending forward said to Harman:

"Lady Tranmore has shown me your picture. It is a dear, delicious thing!

I never saw anything more heavenly than the angel."

Harman smiled a flattered smile. Mary Lyster referred to a copy of a

"Filippo Lippi Annunciation" which he had just executed in water-color

for Lady Tranmore, to whom he was devoted. He was, however, devoted to a

good many peeresses, with whom he took tea, and for whom he undertook

many harmless and elegant services. He painted their portraits, in small

size, after pre-Raphaelite models, and he occasionally presented them

with copies--a little weak, but charming--of their favorite Italian

pictures. He and Mary began now to talk of Florence with much enthusiasm

and many caressing adjectives. For Harman most things were "sweet"; for

Mary, "interesting" or "suggestive." She talked fast and fluently; a

subtle observer might have guessed she wished it to be seen that for her

Lady Kitty Bristol's flirtations, be they in or out of taste, were

simply non-existent.

Darrell listened intermittently, watched Cliffe and Lady Kitty, and

thought a good deal. That extraordinary girl was certainly "carrying on"

with Cliffe, as she had "carried on" with Ashe on the night of her first

acquaintance with him in St. James's Place. Ashe apparently took it with

equanimity, for he was still sitting beside the pair, twisting a

paper-knife and smiling, sometimes putting in a word, but more often

silent, and apparently of no account at all to either Kitty or Cliffe.

Darrell knew that the new minister disliked and despised Geoffrey

Cliffe; he was aware, too, that Cliffe returned these sentiments, and

was not unlikely to be found attacking Ashe in public before long on

certain points of foreign policy, where Cliffe conceived himself to be a

master. The meeting of the two men under the Grosvilles' roof struck

Darrell as curious. Why had Cliffe been invited by these very

respectable and straitlaced people the Grosvilles? Darrell could only

reflect that Lady Eleanor Cliffe, the traveller's mother, was probably

connected with them by some of those innumerable and ever-ramifying

links that hold together a certain large group of English families; and

that, moreover, Lady Grosville, in spite of philanthropy and

Evangelicalism, had always shown a rather pronounced taste in

"lions"--of the masculine sort. Of the women to be met with at Grosville

Park, one could be certain. Lady Grosville made no excuses for her own

sex. But she was a sufficiently ambitious hostess to know that agreeable

parties are not constructed out of the saints alone. The men, therefore,

must provide the sinners; and of some of the persons then most in vogue

she was careful not to know too much. For, socially, one must live; and

that being so, the strictness of to-day may have at any moment to be

purchased by the laxity of to-morrow. Such, at any rate, was Darrell's

analysis of the situation.

He was still astonished, however, when all was said. For Cliffe during

the preceding winter, on his return from some remarkable travels in

Persia, had paused on the Riviera, and an affair at Cannes with a French

vicomtesse had got into the English papers. No one knew the exact truth

of it; and a small volume of verse by Cliffe, published immediately

afterwards--verse very distinguished, passionate, and obscure--had

offered many clews, but no solution whatever. Nobody supposed, however,

that the story was anything but a bad one. Moreover, the last book of

travels--which had had an enormous success--contained one of the most

malicious attacks on foreign missions that Darrell remembered. And if

the missionaries had a supporter in England, it was Lady Grosville. Had

she designs--material designs--on behalf of Miss Amy or Miss Caroline?

Darrell smiled at the notion. Cliffe must certainly marry money, and was

not to be captured by any Miss Amys--or Lady Kittys either, for the

matter of that.

But?--Darrell glanced at the lady beside him, and his busy thoughts took

a new turn. He had seen the greeting between Miss Lyster and Cliffe. It

was cold; but all the same the world knew that they had once been

friends. Was it some five years before that Miss Lyster, then in the

height of a brilliant season under the wing of Lady Tranmore, had been

much seen in public with Geoffrey Cliffe? Then he had departed eastward,

to explore the upper waters of the Mékong, and the gossip excited had

died away. Of late her name had been rather coupled with that of William

Ashe.

Well, so far as the world was concerned, she might mate with

either--with the mad notoriety of Cliffe or the young distinction of

Ashe. Darrell's bitter heart contracted as he reflected that only for

him and the likes of him, men of the people, with average ability, and a

scarcely average income, were maidens of Mary Lyster's dower and

pedigree out of reach. Meanwhile he revenged himself by being her very

good friend, and allowing himself at times much caustic plainness of

speech in his talks with her.

* * * * *

"What are you three gossiping about?" said Ashe, strolling in presently

from the other room to join them.

"As usual," said Darrell. "I am listening to perfection. Miss Lyster and

Harman are discussing pictures."

Ashe stifled a little yawn. He threw himself down by Mary, vowing that

there was no more pleasure to be got out of pictures now that people

would try to know so much about them. Mary meanwhile raised herself

involuntarily to look into the farther room, where the noise made by

Cliffe and Lady Kitty had increased.

"They are going to sing," said Ashe, lazily--"and it won't be hymns."

In fact, Lady Kitty had opened the piano, and had begun the first bars

of something French and operatic. At the first sound of Kitty's music,

however, Lady Grosville drew herself up; she closed the volume of

Evangelical sermons for which she had exchanged the _Times_; she

deposited her spectacles sharply on the table beside her.

"Amy!--Caroline!"

Those young ladies rose. So did Lady Grosville. Kitty meanwhile sat with

suspended fingers and laughing eyes, waiting on her aunt's movements.

"Kitty, pray don't let me interfere with your playing," said Lady

Grosville, with severe politeness--"but perhaps you would kindly put it

off for half an hour. I am now going to read to the servants--"

"Gracious!" said Kitty, springing up. "I was going to play Mr. Cliffe

some Offenbach."

"Ah, but the piano can be heard in the library, and your cousin Amy

plays the harmonium--"

"_Mon Dieu_!" said Kitty. "We will be as quiet as mice. Or"--she made a

quick step in pursuit of her aunt--"shall I come and sing, Aunt Lina?"

Ashe, in his shelter behind Mary Lyster, fell into a silent convulsion

of laughter.

"No, thank you!" said Lady Grosville, hastily. And she rustled away

followed by her daughters.

Kitty came flying into the inner room followed by Cliffe.

"What have I done?" she said, breathlessly, addressing Harman, who rose

to greet her. "Mayn't one play the piano here on Sundays?"

"That depends," said Harman, "on what you play."

"Who made your English Sunday?" said Kitty, impetuously. "Je vous

demande--_who_?"

She threw her challenge to all the winds of heaven--standing tiptoe, her

hands poised on the back of a chair, the smallest and most delicate of

furies.

"A breath unmakes it, as a breath has made," said Cliffe. "Come and play

billiards, Lady Kitty. You said just now you played."

"Billiards!" said Harman, throwing up his hands. "On Sunday--_here_?"

"Can they hear the balls?" said Kitty, eagerly, with a gesture towards

the library.

Mary Lyster, who had been perfunctorily looking at a book, laid it down.

"It would certainly greatly distress Lady Grosville," she said, in a

voice studiously soft, but on that account perhaps all the more

significant.

Kitty glanced at Mary, and Ashe saw the sudden red in her cheek. She

turned provokingly to Cliffe. "There's quite half an hour, isn't there,

before one need dress--"

"More," said Cliffe. "Come along."

And he made for the door, which he held open for her. It was now Mary

Lyster's turn to flush--the rebuff had been so naked and unadorned. Ashe

rose as Kitty passed him.

"Why don't you come, too?" she said, pausing. There was a flash from

eyes deep and dark beneath a pair of wilful brows. "Aunt Lina would

never be cross with _you_!"

"Thank you! I should be delighted to play buffer, but unfortunately I

have some work I must do before dinner."

"Must you?" She looked at him uncertainly, then at Cliffe. In the dusk

of the large, heavily furnished room, the pale yet brilliant gold of her

hair, her white dress, her slim energy and elegance drew all their

eyes--even Mary Lyster's.

"I must," Ashe repeated, smiling. "I am glad your headache is so much

better."

"It is not in the least better!"

"Then you disguise it like a heroine."

He stood beside her, looking down upon her, his height and strength

measured against her smallness. Apparently his amused detachment, the

slight dryness of his tone annoyed her. She made a tart reply and

vanished through the door that Cliffe held open for her.

* * * * *

Ashe retired to his own room, dealt with some Foreign Office work, and

then allowed himself a meditative smoke. The click of the billiard-balls

had ceased abruptly about ten minutes after he had begun upon his

papers; there had been voices in the hall, Lord Grosville's he thought

among them; and now all was silence.

He thought of the events of the afternoon with mingled amusement and

annoyance. Cliffe was an unscrupulous fellow, and the child's head might

be turned. She should be protected from him in future--he vowed she

should. Lady Tranmore should take it in hand. She had been a match for

Cliffe in various other directions before this.

What brought the man, with his notorious character and antecedents, to

Grosville Park--one of the dwindling number of country-houses in England

where the old Puritan restrictions still held? It was said he was on the

look-out for a post--Ashe, indeed, happened to know it officially; and

Lord Grosville had a good deal of influence. Moreover, failing an

appointment, he was understood to be aiming at Parliament and office;

and there were two safe county-seats within the Grosville sphere.

"Yet even when he wants a thing he can't behave himself in order to get

it," thought Ashe. "Anybody else would have turned Sabbatarian for once,

and refrained from flirting with the Grosvilles' niece. But that's

Cliffe all over--and perhaps the best thing about him."

He might have added that as Cliffe was supposed to desire an appointment

under either the Foreign Office or the Colonial Office, it might have

been thought to his interest to show himself more urbane than he had in

fact shown himself that afternoon to the new Under-Secretary for Foreign

Affairs. But Ashe rarely or never indulged himself in reflections of

that kind. Besides, he and Cliffe knew each other too well for posing.

There was a time when they had been on very friendly terms, and when

Cliffe had been constantly in his mother's drawing-room. Lady Tranmore

had a weakness for "influencing" young men of family and ability; and

Cliffe, in fact, owed her a good deal. Then she had seen cause to think

ill of him; and, moreover, his travels had taken him to the other side

of the world. Ashe was now well aware that Cliffe reckoned on him as a

hostile influence and would not try either to deceive or to propitiate

him.

He thought Cliffe had been disagreeably surprised to see him that

afternoon. Perhaps it was the sudden sense of antagonism acting on the

man's excitable nature that had made him fling himself into the wild

nonsense he had talked with Lady Kitty.

And thenceforward Ashe's thoughts were possessed by Kitty only--Kitty in

her two aspects, of the morning and the afternoon. He dressed in a

reverie, and went down-stairs still dreaming.

* * * * *

At dinner he found himself responsible for Mary Lyster. Kitty was on the

other side of the table, widely separated both from himself and Cliffe.

She was in a little Empire dress of blue and silver, as extravagantly

simple as her gown of the afternoon had been extravagantly elaborate.

Ashe observed the furtive study that the Grosville girls could not help

bestowing upon her--upon her shoulder-straps and long, bare arms, upon

her high waist and the blue and silver bands in her hair. Kitty herself

sat in a pensive or proud silence. The Dean was beside her, but she

scarcely spoke to him, and as to the young man from the neighborhood who

had taken her in, he was to her as though he were not.

"Has there been a row?" Ashe inquired, in a low voice, of his companion.

Mary looked at him quietly.

"Lord Grosville asked them not to play--because of the servants."

"Good!" said Ashe. "The servants were, of course, playing cards in the

house-keeper's room."

"Not at all. They were singing hymns with Lady Grosville."

Ashe looked incredulous.

"Only the slaveys and scullery maids that couldn't help themselves.

Never mind. Was Lady Kitty amenable?"

"She seems to have made Lord Grosville very angry. Lady Grosville and I

smoothed him down."

"Did you?" said Ashe. "That was nice of you."

Mary colored a little, and did not reply. Presently Ashe resumed.

"Aren't you as sorry for her as I am?"

"For Lady Kitty? I should think she managed to amuse herself pretty

well."

"She seems to me the most deplorable tragic little person," said Ashe,

slowly.

Miss Lyster laughed.

"I really don't see it," she said.

"Oh yes, you do," he persisted--"if you think a moment. Be kind to

her--won't you?"

She drew herself up with a cold dignity.

"I confess that she has never attracted me in the least."

Ashe returned to his dinner, dimly conscious that he had spoken like a

fool.

When the ladies had withdrawn, the conversation fell on some important

news from the Far East contained in the Sunday papers that Geoffrey

Cliffe had brought down, and presumed to form part of the despatches

which the two ministers staying in the house had received that afternoon

by Foreign Office messenger. The government of Teheran was in one of its

periodical fits of ill-temper with England; had been meddling with

Afghanistan, flirting badly with Russia, and bringing ridiculous charges

against the British minister. An expedition to Bushire was talked of,

and the Radical press was on the war-path. The cabinet minister said

little. A Lord Privy Seal, reverentially credited with advising royalty

in its private affairs, need have no views on the Persian Gulf. But Ashe

was appealed to and talked well. The minister at Teheran was an old

friend of his, and he described the personal attacks made on him for

political reasons by the Shah and his ministers with a humor which kept

the table entertained.

Suddenly Cliffe interposed. He had been listening with restlessness,

though Ashe, with pointed courtesy, had once or twice included him in

the conversation. And presently, at a somewhat dramatic moment, he met a

statement of Ashe's with a direct and violent contradiction. Ashe

flushed, and a duel began between the two men of which the company were

soon silent spectators. Ashe had the resources of official knowledge;

Cliffe had been recently on the spot, and pushed home the advantage of

the eye-witness with a covert insolence which Ashe bore with surprising

carelessness and good-temper. In the end Cliffe said some outrageous

things, at which Ashe laughed; and Lord Grosville abruptly dissolved the

party.

Ashe went smiling out of the dining-room, caressing a fine white

spaniel, as though nothing had happened. In crossing the hall Harman

found himself alone with the Dean, who looked serious and preoccupied.

"That was a curious spectacle," said Harman. "Ashe's equanimity was

amazing."

"I had rather have seen him angrier," said the Dean, slowly.

"He was always a very tolerant, easy-going fellow."

The Dean shook his head.

"A touch of _soeva indignatio_ now and then would complete him."

"Has he got it in him?"

"Perhaps not," said the little Dean, with a flash of expression that

dignified all his frail person. "But without it he will hardly make a

great man."

Meanwhile Geoffrey Cliffe, his strange, twisted face still vindictively

aglow, made his way to Kitty Bristol's corner in the drawing-room. Mary

Lyster was conscious of it, conscious also of a certain look that Kitty

bestowed upon the entrance of Ashe, while Cliffe was opening a battery

of mingled chaff and compliments that did not at first have much effect

upon her. But William Ashe threw himself into conversation with Lady

Edith Manley, and was presently, to all appearance, happily plunged in

gossip, his tall person wholly at ease in a deep arm-chair, while Lady

Edith bent over him with smiles. Meanwhile there was a certain desertion

of Kitty on the part of the ladies. Lady Grosville hardly spoke to her,

and the girls markedly avoided her. There was a moment when Kitty,

looking round her, suddenly shook her small shoulders, and like a colt

escaping from harness gave herself to riot. She and Cliffe amused

themselves so well and so noisily that the whole drawing-room was

presently uneasily aware of them. Lady Grosville shot glances of wrath,

rose suddenly at one moment and sat down again; her girls talked more

disjointedly than ever to the gentlemen who were civilly attending them;

while, on the other hand, Miss Lyster's flow of conversation with Louis

Harman was more softly copious than usual. At last the Dean's wife

looked at the Dean, a signal of kind distress, and the Dean advanced.

"Lady Kitty," he said, taking a seat beside the pair, "have you

forgotten you promised me some French?"

Kitty turned on him a hot and mutinous face.

"Did I? What shall I say? Some Alfred de Musset?"

"No," said the Dean, "I think not."

"Some--some"--she cudgelled her memory--"some Théophile Gautier?"

"No, certainly not!" said the Dean, hastily.

"Well, as I don't know a word of him--" laughed Kitty.

"That was mischievous," said the Dean, raising a finger. "Let me suggest

Lamartine."

Kitty shook her head obstinately. "I never learned one line."

"Then some of the old fellows," said the Dean, persuasively. "I long to

hear you in Corneille or Racine. That we should _all_ enjoy."

And suddenly his wrinkled hand fell kindly on the girl's small, chilly

ringers and patted them. Their eyes met, Kitty's wild and challenging,

the Dean's full of that ethereal benevolence which blended so agreeably

with his character as courtier and man of the world. There was a bright

sweetness in them which seemed to say: "Poor child! I understand. But be

a _little_ good--as well as clever--and all will be well."

Suddenly Kitty's look wavered and fell. All the harshness dissolved from

her thin young beauty. She turned from Cliffe, and the Dean saw her

quiver with submission.

"I think I could say some 'Polyeucte,'" she said, gently.

The Dean clapped his hands and rose.

"Lady Grosville," he said, raising his voice--"Ladies and gentlemen,

Lady Kitty has promised to say us some more French poetry. You remember

how admirably she recited last night. But this is Sunday, and she will

give us something in a different vein."

Lady Grosville, who had risen impatiently, sat down again. There was a

general movement; chairs were turned or drawn forward till a circle

formed. Meanwhile the Dean consulted with Kitty and resumed:

"Lady Kitty will recite a scene from Corneille's beautiful tragedy of

'Polyeucte'--the scene in which Pauline, after witnessing the martyrdom

of her husband, who has been beheaded for refusing to sacrifice to the

gods, returns from the place of execution so melted by the love and

sacrifice she has beheld that she opens her heart then and there to the

same august faith and pleads for the same death."

The Dean seated himself, and Kitty stepped into the centre of the

circle. She thought a moment, her lips moving, as though she recalled

the lines. Then she looked down at her bare arms, and dress, frowned,

and suddenly approached Lady Edith Manley.

"May I have that?" she said, pointing to a lace cloak that lay on Lady

Edith's knee. "I am rather cold."

Lady Edith handed it to her, and she threw it round her.

"Actress!" said Cliffe, under his breath, with a grin of amusement.

At any rate, her impulse served her well. Her form and dress disappeared

under a cloud of white. She became in a flash, so to speak,

evangelized--a most innocent and spiritual apparition. Her beautiful

head, her kindled and transfigured face, her little hand on the white

folds, these alone remained to mingle their impression with the austere

and moving tragedy which her lips recited. Her audience looked on at

first with the embarrassed or hostile air which is the Englishman's

natural protection against the great things of art; then for those who

understood French the high passion and the noble verse began to tell;

while those who could not follow were gradually enthralled by the

gestures and tones with which the slight, vibrating creature, whom but

ten minutes before most of them had regarded as a mere noisy flirt,

suggested and conveyed the finest and most compelling shades of love,

faith, and sacrifice.

When she ceased, there was a moment's profound silence. Then Lady Edith,

drawing a long breath, expressed the welcome commonplace which restored

the atmosphere of daily life.

"How _could_ you remember it all?"

Kitty sat down, her lip trembling scornfully.

"I had to say it every week at the convent."

"I understand," said Cliffe in Darrell's ear--"that last night she was

Doña Sol. An accommodating young woman."

Meanwhile Kitty looked up to find Ashe beside her. He said,

"Magnificent!"--but it did not matter to her what he said. His face told

her that she had moved him, and that he was incapable of any foolish

chatter about it. A smile of extraordinary sweetness sprang into her

eyes; and when Lady Grosville came up to thank her, the girl impetuously

rose, and, in the foreign way, kissed her hand, courtesying. Lord

Grosville said, heartily, "Upon my word, Kitty, you ought to go on the

stage!" and she smiled upon him, too, in a flutter of feeling,

forgetting his scolding and her own impertinence, before dinner. The

revulsion, indeed, throughout the company--with two exceptions--was

complete. For the rest of the evening Kitty basked in sunshine and

flattery. She met it with a joyous gentleness, and the little figure,

still bedraped in white, became the centre of the room's kindness.

The Dean was triumphant.

"My dear Miss Lyster," he said, presently, finding himself near that

lady, "did you ever hear anything better done? A most remarkable

talent!"

Mary smiled.

"I am wondering," she said, "what they teach you in French convents--and

why! It is all so singular,--isn't it?"

* * * * *

Late that night Ashe entered his room--before his usual time, however.

He had tired even of Lord Grosville's chat, and had left the

smoking-room still talking. Indeed, he wished to be alone, and there was

that in his veins which told him that a new motive had taken possession

of his life.

He sat beside the open window reviewing the scenes and feelings of the

day--his interview with Kitty in the morning--the teasing coquette of

the afternoon--the inspired poetic child of the evening. Rapidly, but

none the less strongly and steadfastly, he made up his mind. He would

ask Kitty Bristol to marry him, and he would ask her immediately.

Why? He scarcely knew her. His mother, his family would think it

madness. No doubt it was madness. Yet, as far as he could explain his

impulse himself, it depended on certain fundamental facts in his own

nature--it was in keeping with his deepest character. He had an inbred

love of the difficult, the unconventional in life, of all that piqued

and stimulated his own superabundant consciousness of resource and

power. And he had a tenderness of feeling, a gift of chivalrous pity,

only known to the few, which was in truth always hungrily on the watch,

like some starved faculty that cannot find its outlet. The thought of

this beautiful child, in the hands of such a mother as Madame d'Estrées,

and rushing upon risks illustrated by the half-mocking attentions of

Geoffrey Cliffe, did in truth wring his heart. With a strange

imaginative clearness he foresaw her future, he beheld her the prey at

once of some bad fellow and of her own temperament. She would come to

grief; he saw the prescience of it in her already; and what a waste

would be there!

No!--he would step in--capture her before these ways and whims, now

merely bizarre or foolish, stiffened into what might in truth destroy

her. His pulse quickened as he thought of the development of this

beauty, the ripening of this intelligence. Never yet had he seen a girl

whom he much wished to marry. He was easily repelled by stupidity, still

more by mere amiability. Some touch of acid, of roughness in the

fruit--that drew him, in politics, thought, love. And if she married him

he vowed to himself, proudly, that she would find him no tyrant. Many a

man might marry her who would then fight her and try to break her. All

that was most fastidious and characteristic in Ashe revolted from such a

notion. With him she should have _freedom_--whatever it might cost. He

asked himself deliberately, whether after marriage he could see her

flirting with other men, as she had flirted that day with Cliffe, and

still refrain from coercing her. And his question was answered, or

rather put aside, first by the confidence of nascent love--he would love

her so well and so loyally that she would naturally turn to him for

counsel; and then by the clear perception that she was a creature of

mind rather than sense, governed mainly by the caprices and curiosities

of the _intelligence_, combined with a rather cold, indifferent

temperament. One moment throwing herself wildly into a dangerous or

exciting intimacy, the next, parting with a laugh, and without a

regret--it was thus he saw her in the future, even as a wife. "She may

scandalize half the world," he said to himself, stubbornly--"I shall

understand her!"

But his mother?--his friends?--his colleagues? He knew well his mother's

ambitions for him, and the place that he held in her heart. Could he

without cruelty impose upon her such a daughter as Kitty Bristol?

Well!--his mother had a very large experience of life, and much natural

independence of mind. He trusted her to see the promise in this untamed

and gifted creature; he counted on the sense of power that Lady Tranmore

possessed, and which would but find new scope in the taming of Kitty.

But Kitty's mother? Kitty must, of course, be rescued from Madame

d'Estrées--must find a new and truer mother in Lady Tranmore. But money

would do it; and money must be lavished.

Then, almost for the first time, Ashe felt a conscious delight in wealth

and birth. _Panache_? He could give it her--the little, wild, lovely

thing! Luxury, society, adoration--all should be hers. She should be so

loved and cherished, she must needs love in turn.

His dreams were delicious; and the sudden fear into which he fell at the

end lest after all Kitty should mock and turn from him, was only in

truth another pleasure. No delay! Circumstances might develop at any

moment and sweep her from him. Now or never must he snatch her from

difficulty and disgrace--let hostile tongues wag as they pleased--and

make her his.

His political future? He knew well the influence which, in these days of

universal publicity, a man's private affairs may have on his public

career. And in truth his heart was in that career, and the thought of

endangering it hurt him. Certainly it would recommend him to nobody that

he should marry Madame d'Estrées' daughter. On the other hand, what

favor did he want of anybody? save what work and "knowing more than the

other fellows" might compel? The cynic in him was well aware that he had

already what other men fought for--family, money, and position. Society

must accept his wife; and Kitty, once mellowed by happiness and praise,

might live, laugh, and rattle as she pleased.

As to strangeness and caprice, the modern world delights in them; "the

violent take it by force." There is, indeed, a dividing-line; but it was

a love-marriage that should keep Kitty on the safe side of it.

He stood lost in a very ecstasy of resolve, when suddenly there was a

sharp movement outside, and a flash of white among the yew hedges

bordering the formal garden on which his windows looked. The night

outside was still and veiled, but of the flash of white he was

certain--and of a step on the gravel.

Something fell beside him, thrown from outside. He picked it up, and

found a flower weighted by a stone, tied into a fold of ribbon.

"Madcap!" he said to himself, his heart beating to suffocation.

Then he stole out of his room, and down a small, winding staircase which

led directly to the garden and a door beside the orangery. He had to

unbolt the door, and as he did so a dog in one of the basement rooms

began to bark. But there could be no flinching, though the whole thing

was of an imprudence which pricked his conscience. To slip along the

shadowed side of the orangery, to cross the space of clouded light

beyond, and gain the darkness of the ilex avenue beyond was soon done.

Then he heard a soft laugh, and a little figure fled before him. He

followed and overtook.

Kitty Bristol turned upon him.

"Didn't I throw straight?" she said, triumphantly. "And they say girls

can't throw."

"But why did you throw at all?" he said, capturing her hand.

"Because I wanted to talk to you. And I was restless and couldn't sleep.

Why did you never come and talk to me this afternoon? And why"--she beat

her foot angrily--"did you let me go and play billiards alone with Mr.

Cliffe?"

"Let you!" cried Ashe. "As if anybody could have prevented you!"

"One sees, of course, that you detest Mr. Cliffe," said the whiteness

beside him.

"I didn't come here to talk about Geoffrey Cliffe. I _won't_ talk about

him! Though, of course, you must know--"

"That I flirted with him abominably all the afternoon? _C'est

vrai--c'est ab-sol-ument vrai!_ And I shall always want to flirt with

him, wherever I am--and whatever I may be doing."

"Do as you please," said Ashe, dryly, "but I think you will get tired."

"No, no--he excites me! He is bad, false, selfish, but he excites me. He

talks to very few women--one can see that. And all the women want to

talk to him. He used to admire Miss Lyster, and now he dislikes her. But

she doesn't dislike him. No! she would marry him to-morrow if he asked

her."

"You are very positive," said Ashe. "Allow me to say that I entirely

disagree with you."

"You don't know anything about her," said the teasing voice.

"She is my cousin, mademoiselle."

"What does that matter? I know much more than you do, though I have only

seen her two days. I know that--well, I am afraid of her!"

"Afraid of her? Did you come out--may I ask--determined to talk

nonsense?"

"I came out--never mind! I _am_ afraid of her. She hates me. I

think"--he felt a shiver in the air--will do me harm if she can."

"No one shall do you harm," said Ashe, his tone changing, "if you will

only trust yourself--"

She laughed merrily.

"To you? Oh! you'd soon throw it up."

"Try me!" he said, approaching her. "Lady Kitty, I have something to say

to you."

Suddenly she shrank away from him. He could not see her face, and had

nothing to guide him.

"I haven't yet known you three weeks," he said, over-mastered by

something passionate and profound. "I don't know what you will

say--whether you can put up with me. But I know my own mind--I shall not

change. I--I love you. I ask you to marry me."

A silence. The night seemed to have grown darker. Then a small hand

seized his, and two soft lips pressed themselves upon it. He tried to

capture her, but she evaded him.

"You--you really and actually--want to marry me?"

"I do, Kitty, with all my heart."

"You remember about my mother--about Alice?"

"I remember everything. We would face it together."

"And--you know what I told you about my bad temper?"

"Some nonsense, wasn't it? But I should be bored by the domestic dove. I

want the hawk, Kitty, with its quick wings and its daring bright eyes."

She broke from him with a cry.

"You must listen. I _have_--a wicked, odious, ungovernable temper. I

should make you miserable."

"Not at all," said Ashe. "I should take it very calmly. I am made that

way."

"And then--I don't know how to put it--but I have fancies--overpowering

fancies--and I must follow them. I have one now for Geoffrey Cliffe."

Ashe laughed.

"Oh, that won't last."

"Then some other will come after it. And I can't help it. It is my

head"--she tapped her forehead lightly--"that seems on fire."

Ashe at last slipped his arm round her.

"But it is your heart--you will give me."

She pushed him away from her and held him at arm's-length.

"You are very rich, aren't you?" she said, in a muffled voice.

"I am well off. I can give you all the pretty things you want."

"And some day you will be Lord Tranmore?"

"Yes, when my poor father dies," he said, sighing. He felt her fingers

caress his hand again. It was a spirit touch, light and tender.

"And every one says you are so clever--you have such prospects. Perhaps

you will be Prime Minister."

"Well, there's no saying," he threw out, laughing--"if you'll come and

help."

He heard a sob.

"Help! I should be the ruin of you. I should spoil everything. You don't

know the mischief I can do. And I can't help it, it's in my blood."

"You would like the game of politics too much to spoil it, Kitty." His

voice broke and lingered on the name. "You would want to be a great lady

and lead the party."

"Should I? Could you ever teach me how to behave?"

"You would learn by nature. Do you know, Kitty, how clever you are?"

"Yes," she sighed. "I am clever. But there is always something that

hinders--that brings failure."

"How old are you?" he said, laughing. "Eighteen--or eighty?"

Suddenly he put out his arms, enfolding her. And she, still sobbing,

raised her hands, clasped them round his neck, and clung to him like a

child.

"Oh! I knew--I knew--when I first saw your face. I had been so miserable

all day--and then you looked at me--and I wanted to tell you all. Oh, I

adore you--I adore you!" Their faces met. Ashe tasted a moment of

rapture; and knew himself free at last of the great company of poets and

of lovers.

They slipped back to the house, and Ashe saw her disappear by a door on

the farther side of the orangery--noiselessly, without a sound. Except

that just at the last she drew him to her and breathed a sacred whisper

in his ear.

"Oh! what--what will Lady Tranmore say?"

Then she fled. But she left her question behind her, and when the dawn

came Ashe found that he had spent half the night in trying anew to frame

some sort of an answer to it.