PART III

DEVELOPMENT

"Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, Sich ein Character in dem

Strom, der Welt."

XIV

"What does Lady Kitty do with herself here?" said Darrell, looking round

him. He had just arrived from town on a visit to the Ashes, to find the

Haggart house and garden completely deserted, save for Mrs. Alcot, who

was lounging in solitude, with a cigarette and a novel, on the wide lawn

which surrounded the house on three sides.

As he spoke he lifted a chair and placed it beside her, under one of the

cedars which made deep shade upon the grass.

"She plays at Lady Bountiful," said Mrs. Alcot. "She doesn't do it well,

but--"

"--The wonder is, in Johnsonian phrase, that she should do it at all.

Anything else?"

"I understand--she is writing a book--a novel."

Darrell threw back his head and laughed long and silently.

"Il ne manquait que cela," he said--"that Lady Kitty should take to

literature!"

Mrs. Alcot looked at him rather sharply.

"Why not? We frivolous people are a good deal cleverer than you think."

The languid arrogance of the lady's manner was not at all unbecoming.

Darrell made an inclination.

"No need to remind me, madam!" A recent exhibition at an artistic club

of Mrs. Alcot's sketches had made a considerable mark. "Very soon you

will leave us poor professionals no room to live."

The slight disrespect of his smile annoyed his companion, but the day

was hot and she had no repartee ready. She only murmured as she threw

away her cigarette:

"Kitty is much disappointed in the village."

"They are greater brutes than she thought?"

"Quite the contrary. There are no poachers--and no murders. The girls

prefer to be married, and the Tranmores give so much away that no one

has the smallest excuse for starvation. Kitty gets nothing out of them

whatever."

"In the way of literary material?"

Mrs. Alcot nodded.

"Last week she was so discouraged that she was inclined to give up

fiction and take to journalism."

"Heavens! Political?"

"Oh, _la haute politique_, of course."

"H'm. The wives of cabinet ministers have often inspired articles. I

don't remember an instance of their writing them."

"Well, Kitty is inclined to try."

"With Ashe's sanction?"

"Goodness, no! But Kitty, as you are aware"--Mrs. Alcot threw a prudent

glance to right and left--"goes her own way. She believes she can be of

great service to her husband's policy."

Darrell's lip twitched.

"If you were in Ashe's position, would you rather your wife neglected or

supported your political interests?"

Mrs. Alcot shrugged her shoulders.

"Kitty made a considerable mess of them last year."

"No doubt. She forgot they existed. But I think if I were Ashe, I should

be more afraid of her remembering. By-the-way--the glass here seems to

be at 'Set Fair'?"

His interrogative smile was not wholly good-natured. But mere

benevolence was not what the world asked of Philip Darrell--even in the

case of his old friends.

"Astonishing!" said Mrs. Alcot, with lifted brows. "Kitty is immensely

proud of him--and immensely ambitious. That, of course, accounts for

Lord Parham's visit."

"Lord Parham!" cried Darrell, bounding on his seat. "Lord

Parham!--coming here?"

"He arrives to-morrow. On his way from Scotland--to Windsor."

Mrs. Alcot enjoyed the effect of her communication on her companion. He

sat open-mouthed, evidently startled out of all self-command.

"Why, I thought that Lady Kitty--"

"Had vowed vengeance? So, in a sense, she has. It is understood that she

and Lady Parham don't meet, except--"

"On formal occasions, and to take in the groundlings," said Darrell, too

impatient to let her finish her sentence. "Yes, that I gathered. But you

mean that _Lord_ Parham is to be allowed to make his peace?"

Madeleine Alcot lay back and laughed.

"Kitty wishes to try her hand at managing him."

Darrell joined her in mirth. The notion of the white-haired,

bullet-headed, shrewd, and masterful man who at that moment held the

Premiership of England managed by Kitty, or any other daughter of

Eve--always excepting his wife--must needs strike those who had the

slightest acquaintance with Lord Parham as a delicious absurdity.

Suddenly Darrell checked himself, and bent forward.

"Where--if I may ask--is the poet?"

"Geoffrey? Somewhere in the Balkans, isn't he?--making a revolution."

Darrell nodded.

"I remember. They say he is with the revolutionary committee at

Marinitza. Meanwhile there is a new volume of poems out--to-day," said

Darrell, glancing at a newspaper thrown down beside him.

"I have seen it. The 'portrait' at the end--"

"Is Lady Kitty." They spoke under their breaths.

"Unmistakable, I think," said Kitty's best friend. "As poetry, it seems

to me the best thing in the book, but the audacity of it!" She raised

her eyebrows in a half-unwilling, half-contemptuous admiration.

"Has she seen it?"

Mrs. Alcot replied that she had not noticed any copy in the house, and

that Kitty had not spoken of it, which, given the Kitty-nature, she

probably would have done, had it reached her.

Then they both fell into reverie, from which Darrell emerged with the

remark:

"I gather that last year some very important person interfered?"

This opened another line of gossip, in which, however, Mrs. Alcot showed

herself equally well informed. It was commonly reported, at any rate,

that the old Duke of Morecambe, the head of Lady Eleanor Cliffe's

family, the great Tory evangelical of the north, who was a sort of

patriarch in English political and aristocratic life, had been induced

by some undefined pressure to speak very plainly to his kinsman on the

subject of Lady Kitty Ashe. Cliffe had expectations from the duke which

were not to be trifled with. He had, accordingly, swallowed the lecture,

and, after the loss of his election, had again left England with an

important newspaper commission to watch events in the Balkans.

"May he stay there!" said Darrell. "Of course, the whole thing was

absurdly exaggerated."

"Was it?" said Mrs. Alcot, coolly. "Kitty richly deserved most of what

was said." Then--on his start--"Don't misunderstand me, of course. If

twenty actions for divorce were given against Kitty, I should believe

nothing--_nothing_!" The words were as emphatic as voice and gesture

could make them. "But as for the tales that people who hate her tell of

her, and will go on telling of her--"

"They are merely the harvest of what she has sown?"

"Naturally. Poor Kitty!"

Madeleine Alcot rested her thin cheek on a still frailer hand and looked

pensively out into the darkness of the cedars. Her tone was neither

patronizing nor unkind; rather, the shade of ironic tenderness which it

expressed suited the subject, and that curious intimacy which had of

late sprung up between herself and Darrell. She had begun, as we have

seen, by treating him _de haut en bas_. He had repaid her with manner of

the same type; in this respect he was a match for any Archangel. Then

some accident--perhaps the publication by the man of a volume of essays

which expressed to perfection his acid and embittered talent--perhaps a

casual meeting at a northern country-house, where the lady had found the

man of letters her only resource amid a crowd of uncongenial

nonentities--had shown them their natural compatibility. Both were in a

secret revolt against circumstance and their own lives; but whereas the

reasons for the man's attitude--his jealousies, defeats, and

ambitions--were fairly well understood by the woman, he was almost as

much in the dark about her as when their friendship began.

He knew her husband slightly--an eager, gifted fellow, of late years a

strong High Churchman, and well known in a certain group as the friend

of Mrs. Armagh, that muse--fragile, austere, and beautiful--of several

great men, and great Christians, among the older generation. Mrs. Alcot

had her own intimates, generally men; but she tired of them and changed

them often. Mr. Alcot spent part of every year within reach of the

Cornish home of Mrs. Armagh; and during that time his wife made her

round of visits.

Meanwhile her thin lips were sealed as to her own affairs. Certainly she

made the impression of an unhappy woman, and Darrell was convinced of

some tragic complication. But neither he nor any one of whom he had yet

inquired had any idea what it might be.

"By-the-way--where is Lady Kitty?--and are there many people here?"

Darrell turned, as he spoke, to scrutinize the house and its approaches.

Haggart Hall was a large and commonplace mansion, standing in the midst

of spreading "grounds" and dull plantations, beyond which could be

sometimes seen the tall chimneys of neighboring coal-mines. It wore an

air of middle-class Tory comfort which brought a smile to Darrell's

countenance as he surveyed it.

"Kitty is at the Agricultural Show--with a party."

"Playing the great lady? _What_ a house!"

"Yes. Kitty abhors it. But it will do very well for the party

to-morrow."

"Half the county--that kind of thing?"

"_All_ the county--some royalties--and Lord Parham."

"Lord Parham being the end and aim? I thought I heard wheels."

Mrs. Alcot rose, and they strolled back towards the house.

"And the party?" resumed Darrell.

"Not particularly thrilling. Lord Grosville--"

"Also, I presume, _en garçon_."

Mrs. Alcot smiled.

"--the Manleys, Lady Tranmore, Miss French, the Dean of Milford and his

wife, Eddie Helston--"

"That, I understand, is Lady Kitty's undergraduate adorer?"

"It's no use talking to you--you know all the gossip. And some county

big-wigs, whose names I can't remember--come to dinner to-night." Mrs.

Alcot stifled a yawn.

"I am very curious to see how Ashe takes his triumph," said Darrell, as

they paused half-way.

"He is just the same. No!" said Madeleine Alcot, correcting

herself--"no--not quite. He _meant_ to triumph, and he _knows_ that he

has done so."

"My dear lady!" cried Darrell--"a quite _enormous_ difference! Ashe

never took stock of himself or his prospects in his life before."

"Well, now--you will find he takes stock of a good many things."

"Including Lady Kitty?"

His companion smiled.

"He won't let her interfere again."

"_L'homme propose_," said Darrell. "You mean he has grown ambitious?"

Mrs. Alcot seemed to find it difficult to cope with these high things.

Fanning herself, she languidly supposed that the English political

passion, so strong and unspent still in the aristocratic families, had

laid serious hold at last on William Ashe. He had great schemes of

reform, and, do what he might to conceal it, his heart was in them. His

wife, therefore, was no longer his occupation, but--

Mrs. Alcot hesitated for a word.

"Scarcely his repose?" laughed Darrell.

"I really won't discuss Kitty any more," said Mrs. Alcot, impatiently.

"Here they are! Hullo! What has Kitty got hold of now?"

Three carriages were driving up the long approach, one behind the other.

In the first sat Kitty, a figure beside her in the dress of a nurse, and

opposite to them both an indistinguishable bundle, which presently

revealed a head. The carriage drew up at the steps. Kitty jumped down,

and she and the nurse lifted the bundle out. Footmen appeared; some

guests from the next carriage went to help; there was a general movement

and agitation, in the midst of which Kitty and her companions

disappeared into the house.

Lady Edith Manley and Lord Grosville began to cross the lawn.

"What is the matter?" asked Mrs. Alcot, as they converged.

"Kitty ran over a boy," said Lord Grosville, in evident annoyance. "The

rascal hadn't a scratch, but Kitty must needs pick him up and drive him

home with a nurse. 'I ain't hurt, mum,' says the boy. 'Oh! but you must

be,' said Kitty. I offered to take him to his mother and give him half a

crown. 'It's my duty to look after him,' says Kitty. And she lifted him

up herself--dirty little vagabond!--and put him in the carriage. There

were some laborers and grooms standing near, and one of them sang out,

'Three cheers for Lady Kitty Ashe!' Such a ridiculous scene as you never

saw!"

The old man shrugged his shoulders contemptuously.

"Lady Kitty is always so kind," said the amicable Lady Edith. "But her

pretty dress--I _was_ sorry!"

"Oh no--only an excuse for a new one," said Mrs. Alcot.

The Dean and Lady Tranmore approached--behind them again Ashe and Mrs.

Winston.

"Well, old fellow!" said Ashe, clapping a hand on Darrell's shoulder.

"Uncommonly glad to see you. You look as though that damned London had

been squeezing the life out of you. Come for a stroll before dinner?"

The two men accordingly left the talkers on the lawn, and struck into

the park. Ashe, in a straw hat and light suit, made his usual impression

of strength and good-humor. He was gay, friendly, amusing as ever. But

Darrell was not long in discovering or imagining signs of change. Any

one else would have thought Ashe's talk frankness--nay,

indiscretion--itself. Darrell at once divined or imagined in it shades

of official reserve, tracts of reticence, such as an old friend had a

right to resent.

"One can see what a personage he feels himself!"

Yet Darrell would have been the first to own that Ashe had some right to

feel himself a personage. The sudden revelation of his full intellectual

power, and of his influence in the country, for which the general

election of the preceding winter had provided the opportunity, was still

an exciting memory among journalists and politicians. He had gone into

the election a man slightly discredited, on whose future nobody took

much trouble to speculate. He had emerged from it--after a series of

speeches laying down the principles and vindicating the action of his

party--one of the most important men in England, with whom Lord Parham

himself must henceforth treat on quasi-equal terms. Ashe was now Home

Secretary, and, if Lord Parham's gout should take an evil turn, there

was no saying to what height fortune might not soon conduct him.

The will--the iron purpose--with which it had all been done--that was

the amazing part of it. The complete independence, moreover. Darrell

imagined that Lord Parham must often have regretted the small intrigue

by which Ashe's promotion had been barred in the crisis of the summer.

It had roused an indolent man to action, and freed him from any

particular obligation towards the leader who had ill-treated him. Ashe's

campaign had not been in all respects convenient; but Lord Parham had

had to put up with it.

The summer evening broadened as the two men sauntered on through the

park, beside a small stream fringed with yellow flags. Even the dingy

Midland landscape, with its smoke-blackened woods and lifeless grass,

assumed a glory of great light; the soft, interlacing clouds parted

before the dying sun; the water received the golden flood, and each coot

and water-hen shone jet and glossy in the blaze. A few cries of birds,

the distant shouts of harvesters, the rustling of the water-flags along

the stream, these were the only sounds--traditional sounds of English

peace.

"Jolly, isn't it?" said Ashe, looking round him--"even this spoiled

country! Why did we go and stifle in that beastly show!"

The sensuous pleasure and relaxation of his mood communicated itself to

Darrell. They talked more intimately, more freely than they had done for

months. Darrell's gnawing consciousness of his own meaner fortunes, as

contrasted with the brilliant and expanding career of his school-friend,

softened and relaxed. He almost forgave Ashe the successes of the

winter, and that subtly heightened tone of authority and self-confidence

which here and there bore witness to them in the manner or talk of the

minister. They scarcely touched on politics, however. Both were tired,

and their talk drifted into the characteristic male gossip--"What's ----

doing now?" "Do you ever see So-and-so?" "You remember that fellow at

Univ.?"--and the like, to the agreeable accompaniment of Ashe's best

cigars.

So pleasant was the half-hour, so strongly had the old college intimacy

reasserted itself, that suddenly a thought struck upward in Darrell's

mind. He had not come to Haggart bent merely on idle holiday--far from

it. At the moment he was weary of literature as a profession, and

sharply conscious that the time for vague ambitions had gone by. A post

had presented itself, a post of importance, in the gift of the Home

Office. It meant, no doubt, the abandonment of more brilliant things;

Darrell was content to abandon them. His determination to apply for it

seemed, indeed, to himself an act of modesty--almost of sacrifice. As to

the technical qualifications required, he was well aware there might be

other men better equipped than himself. But, after all, to what may not

general ability aspire--general ability properly stiffened with

interest?

And as to interest, when was it ever to serve him if not now--through

his old friendship with Ashe? Chivalry towards a much-solicited mortal,

also your friend--even the subtler self-love--might have counselled

silence--or at least approaches more gradual. It had been far from his

purpose, indeed, to speak so promptly. But here were the hour and the

man! And there, in a distant country town, a woman--whereof the mere

existence was unsuspected by Darrell's country-house acquaintance--sat

waiting, in whose eyes the post in question loomed as a

condition--perhaps indispensable. Darrell's secret eagerness could not

withstand the temptation.

So, with a nervous beginning--"By-the-way, I wished to consult you about

a personal matter. Of course, answer or not, as you like. Naturally, I

understand the difficulties!"--the plunge was taken, and the petitioner

soon in full career.

After a first start--a lifted brow of astonishment--Ashe was

uncomfortably silent--till suddenly, in a pause of Darrell's eloquence,

his face changed, and with a burst of his old, careless freedom and

affection, he flung an arm along Darrell's shoulder, with an impetuous--

"I say, old fellow--don't--don't be a damned fool!"

An ashen white overspread the countenance of the man thus addressed. His

lips twitched. He walked on in silence. Ashe looked at him--stammered:

"Why, my dear Philip, it would be the extinguishing of you!"

Darrell said nothing. Ashe, still holding his friend captive, descanted

hurriedly on the disadvantages of the post "for a man of your gifts,"

then--more cautiously--on its special requirements, not one of which did

Darrell possess--hinted at the men applying for it, at the scientific

and professional influences then playing upon himself, at his strong

sense of responsibility--"Too bad, isn't it, that a duffer like me

should have to decide these things"--and so on.

In vain. Darrell laughed, recovered himself, changed the subject; but as

they walked quickly back to the house, Ashe knew, perchance, that he had

lost a friend; and Darrell's smarting soul had scored another reckoning

against a day to come.

* * * * *

As they neared the house they found a large group still lingering on the

lawn, and Kitty just emerging from a garden door. She came out

accompanied by the handsome Cambridge lad who had been her partner at

Lady Crashaw's dance. He was evidently absorbed in her society, and they

approached in high spirits, laughing and teasing each other.

"Well, Kitty, how's the bruised one?" said Ashe, as he sank into a chair

beside Mrs. Alcot.

"Doing finely," said Kitty. "I shall send him home to-night."

"Meanwhile, have you put him up in my dressing-room? I only ask for

information."

"There wasn't another corner," said Kitty.

"There!" Ashe appealed to gods and men. "How do you expect me to dress

for dinner?"

"Oh, now, William, don't be tiresome!" said Kitty, impatiently. "He was

bruised black and blue"--("Serve him right for getting in the way,"

grumbled Lord Grosville)--"and nurse and I have done him up in arnica."

She came to stand by Ashe, talking in an undertone and as fast as

possible. The little Dean, who never could help watching her, thought

her more beautiful--and wilder--than ever. Her eyes--it was hardly

enough to say they shone--they glittered--in her delicate face; her

gestures were more extravagant than he remembered them; her movements

restlessness itself.

Ashe listened with patience--then said:

"I can't help it, Kitty--you really must have him removed."

"Impossible!" she said, her cheek flaming.

"I'll go and talk to Wilson; he'll manage it," said Ashe, getting up.

Kitty pursued him, arguing incessantly.

He lounged along, turning every now and then to look at her, smiling and

demurring, his hat on the back of his head.

"You see the difference," said Mrs. Alcot, in Darrell's ear. "Last year

Kitty would have got her way. This year she won't."

Darrell shrugged his shoulders.

"These domesticities should be kept out of sight, don't you think?"

Madeleine Alcot looked at him curiously.

"Did you have a pleasant walk?" she said.

Darrell made a little face.

"The great man was condescending."

Madeleine Alcot's face was still interrogative.

"A touch of the _folie des grandeurs?_"

"Well, who escapes it?" said Darrell, bitterly.

* * * * *

Most of the party had dispersed. Only Lady Tranmore and Margaret French

were on the lawn. Margaret was writing some household notes for Kitty;

Lady Tranmore sat in meditation, with a book before her which she was

not reading. Miss French glanced at her from time to time. Ashe's mother

was beginning to show the weight of years far more plainly than she had

yet done. In these last three years the face had perceptibly altered; so

had the hair. The long strain of nursing, and that pathetic change which

makes of the husband who has been a woman's pride and shelter her

half-conscious dependent, had, no doubt, left deep marks upon a beauty

which had so long resisted time. And yet Margaret French believed it was

rather with her son than with her husband that the constant and wearing

anxiety of Lady Tranmore's life should be connected. All the ambition,

the pride of race and history which had been disappointed in her husband

had poured themselves into her devotion to her son. She lived now for

his happiness and success. And both were constantly threatened by the

personality and the presence of Kitty.

Such, at least, as Margaret French well knew, was the inmost

persuasion--fast becoming a fanaticism--of Ashe's mother. William might,

indeed, for the moment have triumphed over the consequences of Kitty's

bygone behavior. But the reckless, untamed character was there still at

his side, preparing Heaven knew what pitfalls and catastrophes. Lady

Tranmore lived in fear. And under the outward sweetness and dignity of

her manner was there not developing something worse than fear--that

hatred which is one of the strange births of love?

If so, was it just? There were many moments when Margaret would have

indignantly denied it.

It was true, indeed, that Kitty's eccentricity seemed to develop with

every month that passed. The preceding winter had been marked, first by

a mad folly of table-turning--involving the pursuit of a particular

medium whose proceedings had ultimately landed him in the dock; then by

a headlong passion for hunting, accompanied by a series of new

flirtations, each more unseemly than its predecessor, as it seemed to

Lady Tranmore. Afterwards--during the general election--a political

phase! Kitty had most unfortunately discovered that she could speak in

public, and had fallen in love with the sound of her own voice. In

Ashe's own contest, her sallies and indiscretions had already begun to

do mischief when Lady Tranmore had succeeded in enticing her to London

by the bait of a French _clairvoyante_, with whom Kitty nightly tempted

the gods who keep watch over the secrets of fate--till William's poll

had been declared.

All this was deplorably true. And yet no one could say that Kitty in

this checkered year had done her husband much harm. Ashe was no longer

her blind slave; and his career had carried him to heights with which

even his mother might have been satisfied. Sometimes Margaret was

inclined to think that Kitty had now less influence with him and his

mother more than was the just due of each. She--the younger woman--felt

the tragedy of Ashe's new and growing emancipation. Secretly--often--she

sided with Kitty!

* * * * *

"Margaret!"

The voice was Kitty's. She came running out, her pale-pink skirts flying

round her. "Have you seen the babe?"

Margaret replied that he and his nurse were just in sight.

Kitty fled over the lawn to meet the child's perambulator. She lifted

him out, and carried him in her arms towards Margaret and Lady Tranmore.

"Isn't it piteous?" said Margaret, under her breath, as the mother and

child approached. Lady Tranmore gave her a sad, assenting look.

For during the last six months the child had shown signs of brain

mischief--a curious apathy, broken now and then by fits of temper. The

doctors were not encouraging. And Kitty varied between the most

passionate attempts to rouse the child's failing intelligence and

days--even weeks--when she could hardly bring herself to see him at all.

She brought him now to a seat beside Lady Tranmore. She had been trying

to make him take notice of a new toy. But the child looked at her with

blank and glassy eyes, and the toy fell from his hand.

"He hardly knows me," said Kitty, in a low voice of misery, as she

clasped her hands round the baby of three, and looked into his face, as

though she would drag from it some sign of mind and recognition.

But the blue eyes betrayed no glimmer of response, till suddenly, with a

gesture as of infinite fatigue, the child threw itself back against her,

laying its fair head upon her breast with a long sigh.

Kitty gave a sob, and bent over him, kissing--and kissing him.

"Dear Kitty!" said Lady Tranmore, much moved. "I think--partly--he is

tired with the heat."

Kitty shook her head.

"Take him!" she said to the nurse--"take him! I can't bear it."

The nurse took him from her, and Kitty dried her tears with a kind of

fierceness.

"There is the post!" she said, springing up, as though determined to

throw off her grief as quickly as possible, while the nurse carried the

child away.

The footman brought the letters across the lawn. There were some for

Lady Tranmore and for Margaret French. In the general opening and

reading that ensued, neither lady noticed Kitty for a while. Suddenly

Margaret French looked up. She saw Kitty sitting motionless with a book

on her lap, a book of which the wrapper lay on the grass beside her. Her

finger kept a page; her eyes, full of excitement, were fixed on the

distant horizon of the park; the hurried breathing was plainly

noticeable under the thin bodice.

"Kitty--time to dress!" said Margaret, touching her.

Kitty rose, without a word to either of them, and walked quickly away,

her hands, still holding the book, dropped in front of her, her eyes on

the ground.

"Oh, Kitty!" cried Margaret, in laughing protest, as she stooped to pick

up the litter of Kitty's letters, some of them still unopened, which lay

scattered on the grass, as they had fallen unheeded from her lap.

But the little figure in the trailing skirts was already out of hearing.

* * * * *

At dinner Kitty was in her wildest spirits--a sparkling vision of

diamonds and lace, much beyond--so it seemed to Lord Grosville--what the

occasion required. "Dressed out like a comedy queen at a fair!" was his

inward comment, and he already rolled the phrases in which he should

describe the whole party to his wife. Like the expected Lord Parham, he

was there in sign of semi-reconciliation. Nothing would have induced

Kitty to invite her aunt; the memory of a certain Sunday was too strong.

On her side, Lady Grosville averred that nothing would have induced her

to sit at Kitty's board. As to this, her husband cherished a certain

scepticism. However, her resolution was not tried. It was Ashe, in fact,

who had invited Lord Grosville, and Lord Grosville, who was master in

his own house, and had no mind to break with William Ashe just as that

gentleman's company became even better worth having than usual, had

accepted the invitation.

But his patience was sorely tried by Kitty. After dinner she insisted on

table-turning, and Lord Grosville was dragged breathless through the

drawing-room window, in pursuit of a table that broke a chair and

finally danced upon a flower-bed. His theology was harassed by these

proceedings and his digestion upset. The Dean took it with smiles; but

then the Dean was a Latitudinarian.

Afterwards Kitty and the Cambridge boy--Eddie Helston--performed a

duologue in French for the amusement of the company. Whatever could be

understood in it had better not have been understood--such at least was

Lord Grosville's impression. He wondered how Ashe--who laughed

immoderately--could allow his wife to do such things; and his only

consolation was that, for once, the Dean--whose fancy for Kitty was

ridiculous!--seemed to be disturbed. He had at any rate walked away to

the library in the middle of the piece. Kitty was, of course, making a

fool of the boy all through. Any one could see that he was head over

ears in love with her. And she seemed to have all sorts of mysterious

understandings with him. Lord Grosville was certain they passed each

other notes, and made assignations. And one night, on going up himself

to bed very late, he had actually come upon the pair pacing up and down

the long passage after midnight!--Kitty in such a _negligée_ as only an

actress should wear, with her hair about her ears--and the boy out of

his wits and off his balance, as any one could see. Kitty, indeed, had

been quite unabashed--trying even to draw _him_ into their unseemly talk

about some theatrical nonsense or other; and such blushes as there were

had been entirely left to the boy.

He supposed there was no harm in it. The lad was not a Geoffrey Cliffe,

and it was no doubt Kitty's mad love of excitement which impelled her

to these defiances of convention. But Ashe should put his foot down;

there was no knowing with a creature so wild and so lovely where these

things might end. And after the scandal of last year--

As to that scandal, Lord Grosville, as a man of the world, by no means

endorsed the lurid imaginations of his wife. Kitty and Cliffe had

certainly behaved badly at Grosville Park--that is to say, judged by any

ordinary standards. And the gossip of the season had apparently gathered

and culminated round some incident of a graver character than the

rest--though nobody precisely knew what it might be. But it seemed that

Ashe had at last asserted himself; and if in Kitty's abrupt departure to

the country, and the sudden dissolution of the intimacy between herself

and Cliffe, those who loved her not had read what dark things they

pleased, her uncle by marriage was quite content to see in it a mere

disciplinary act on the part of the husband.

Lord Grosville believed that some rumors as to Cliffe's private

character had entered into the decisive defeat--in a constituency

largely Nonconformist--which had befallen that gentleman at the polls.

Poor Lady Tranmore! He saw her anxieties in her face, and was truly

sorry for her. At the same time, inveterate gossip that he was, he

regarded her with a kind of hunger. If she only _would_ talk things over

with him! So far, however, she had given him very little opening. If she

ever did, he would certainly advise her to press something like a

temporary separation on her son. Why should not Lady Kitty be left at

Haggart when the next session began? Lord Grosville, who had been a

friend of Melbourne's, recalled the early history of that great man.

When Lady Caroline Lamb had become too troublesome to a political

husband, she had been sent to Brocket. And then Mr. Lamb was only Irish

Secretary--without a seat in the cabinet. How was it possible to take an

important share in steering the ship of state, and to look after a giddy

wife at the same time?

* * * * *

Ashe and his guests lingered late below-stairs. When, somewhere about

one o'clock, he entered his dressing-room, he was suddenly alarmed by a

smell of burning. It seemed to come from Kitty's room. He knocked

hastily at her door.

"Kitty!"

No answer. He opened the door, and stood arrested.

The room was in complete darkness save for some weird object in the

centre of it, on which a fire was burning, sending up a smoke which hung

about the room. Ashe recognized an old Spanish brazier of beaten copper,

standing on iron feet, which had been a purchase of his own in days when

he trifled with _bric-à-brac_. Upon it, a heap of some light material,

which fluttered and crackled as it burned, was blazing and smoking away,

while beside it--her profile set and waxen amid the drifts of smoke, her

fair hair blanched to whiteness by the strange illumination from below,

and all her slight form, checkered with the light and shade of the fire,

drawn into a curve of watchfulness, vindictive and intent--stood Kitty.

"What in the name of fortune are you doing, Kitty?" cried Ashe.

She made no answer, and he approached. Then he saw that in the centre

of the pile, and propped up against some small pieces of wood, a

photograph of Geoffrey Cliffe was consuming slow and dismally. The fire

had just sent a line across his cheek. The lower limbs were already

charred, and the right hand was shrivelling.

All around were letters, mostly consumed; while at the top of the pile

above the culprit's head, stuck in a cleft stick, and just beginning to

be licked by the flames, was what seemed to be a leaf torn out of a

book. The book from which it had apparently been wrenched lay open on a

chair near.

Kitty drew a long breath as Ashe came near her.

"Keep off!" she said--"don't touch it!"

"You little goose!" cried Ashe--"what are you about?"

"Burning a coward in effigy," said Kitty, between her teeth.

Ashe thrust his hands into his pockets.

"I wish to God you'd forget the creature, instead of flattering him with

these attentions!"

Kitty made no reply, but as she drew the fire together Ashe captured her

hand.

"What's he been doing now, Kitty?"

"There are his poems," said Kitty, pointing to the chair. "The last one

is about me."

"May I be allowed to see it?"

"It isn't there."

"Ah! I see. You've topped the pile with it. With your leave, I'll delay

its doom." He snatched the leaf from its stick, and bending down read it

by the light of the burning paper. Kitty watched him, frowning, her hand

on her hip, the white wrap she wore over her night-dress twining round

her in close folds a slender, brooding sorceress, some Canidia or

Simaetha, interrupted in her ritual of hate.

But Ashe was in no mood for literary reminiscence. His lip was

contemptuous, his brow angry as he replaced the leaf in its cleft stick,

whither the flames immediately pursued it.

"Wretched stuff, and damned impertinence!--that's all there is to say.

For Heaven's sake, Kitty, don't let any one suppose you mind the

thing--for an instant!"

She looked at him with strange eyes. "But if I do mind it?"

His face darkened to the shade of hers. "Does that mean--that you still

think of him--still wish to see him?"

"I don't know," said Kitty, slowly. The fire had died away. Nothing but

a few charred remnants remained in the brazier. Ashe lit the gas, and

disclosed a tragic Kitty, flushed by the audacity of her last remark. He

took her masterfully in his arms.

"That was bravado," he said, kissing her. "You love _me_! And I may be a

poor stick, but I'm worth a good many Cliffes. Defy me--and I'll write

you a better poem, too!"

The color leaped afresh in Kitty's cheek. She pushed him away, and,

holding him, perused his handsome, scornful face, and all the manly

strength of form and attitude. Her own lids wavered.

"What a silly scene!" she said, and fell--a little, soft, yielding

form--into his arms.

XV

The church clock of Haggart village had just struck half-past six. A

white, sunny mist enwrapped the park and garden. Voices and shouts rang

through the mist; little could yet be seen, but the lawns and the park

seemed to be pervaded with bustle and preparation, and every now and

then as the mist drifted groups of workmen could be distinguished,

marquees emerged, flags floated, and carts laden with benches and

trestle-tables rumbled slowly over the roads and tracks of the park.

The house itself was full of gardeners, arranging banks of magnificent

flowers in the hall and drawing-rooms, and superintended by the head

gardener, a person of much greater dignity than Ashe himself, who swore

at any underling making a noise, as though the slumbers of the "quality"

in the big house overhead and the danger of disturbing them were the

dearest interests of a burdened life.

As to the mistress of the house, at any rate, there was no need for

caution. The clocks of the house had barely followed the church clock in

striking the half-hour when the workmen on the ground floor saw Lady

Kitty come down-stairs and go through the drawing-room window into the

garden. There she gave her opinion on the preparations, pushing on

afterwards into the park, where she astounded the various contractors

and their workmen by her appearance at such an hour, and by the vigor

and decision of her orders. Finally she left the park behind, just as

its broad, scorched surfaces began everywhere to shake off the mist, and

entered one of the bordering woods.

She had a basket on her arm, and, when she had found for herself a mossy

seat amid the roots of a great oak, she unpacked it. It contained a mass

of written pages, some fresh scribbling-paper, ink and pens, and a small

portfolio. When they were all lying on the moss beside her, Kitty turned

over the sheets with a loving hand, reading here and there.

"It is good!" she said to herself. "I vow it is!"

Dipping her pen in the ink, she began upon corrections. The sun filtered

through the thick leafage overhead, touching her white dress, her small

shoes, and the masses of her hair. She wore a Leghorn garden-hat, tied

with pink ribbons under her chin, and in her morning freshness and

daintiness she looked about seventeen. The hours of sleep had calmed the

restlessness of the wide, brown eyes; they were full now of gentleness

and mirth.

"I wonder if he'll come?"

She looked up and listened. And as she did so, her eyes and sense were

seized with the beauty of the wood. The mystery of early solitary hours

seemed to be still upon it; both in the sunlight and the shadow there

was a magic unknown to the later day. In a clearing before her spread a

lake of willow-herb, of a pure bright pink, hemmed in by a golden shore

of ragwort. The splash of color gave Kitty a passionate delight.

"Dear, dear world!" She stretched out her hands to it in a childish

greeting.

Then the joy died sharply from her eyes. "How many years left--to enjoy

it in--before one dies--or one's heart dies?"

Invariably, now, her moments of sensuous pleasure ended in this dread of

something beyond--of a sudden drowning of beauty and delight--of a

future unknown and cruel, coming to meet her, like some armed assassin

in a narrow path.

William! When it came could William save her? "William is a _darling_!"

she said to herself, her face full of yearning.

As for that other--it gave her an intense pleasure to think of the

flames creeping up the form and face of the photograph. Should she hear,

perhaps, in a week or two that he had been seized with some mysterious

illness, like the witch-victims of old? A shiver ran through her, a

thrill of repentance--till the bitter lines of the poem came back to

memory--lines describing a woman with neither the courage for sin nor

the strength for virtue, a "light woman" indeed, whom the great passions

passed eternally by, whom it was a humiliation to court and a mere

weakness to regret. Then she laughed, and began again with passionate

zest upon the sheets before her.

A sound of approaching footsteps on the wood-path. She half rose,

smiling.

The branches parted, and Darrell appeared. He paused to survey the oread

vision of Lady Kitty.

"Am I not to the minute?" He held up his watch in front of her.

"So you got my note?"

"Certainly. I was immensely flattered." He threw himself down on the

moss beside her, his sallow, long-chinned face and dark eyes toned to a

morning cheerfulness, his dress much fresher and more exact than usual.

"But he is one of the men who look so much better in their old clothes!"

thought Kitty.

"Well, what can I do for you, Lady Kitty?" he resumed, smiling.

"I wanted your advice," said Kitty--not altogether sure, now that he was

there beside her, that she did want it.

"About your literary work?"

She threw him a quick glance.

"Do you know? How do you know? I have been writing a book!"

"So I imagined--"

"And--and--" She broke now into eagerness, bending forward, "I want you

to help me get it published. It is a deadly secret. Nobody knows--"

"Not even William?"

"No one," she repeated. "And I can't tell you about it, or show you a

line of it, unless you vow and swear to me--"

"Oh! I swear," said Darrell, tranquilly--"I swear."

Kitty looked at him doubtfully a moment--then resumed:

"I have written it at all sorts of times--when William was away--in the

middle of the night--out in the woods. _Nobody_ knows. You see"--her

little fingers plucked at the moss--"I have a good many advantages. If

people want 'Society' with a big S, I can give it them!"

"Naturally," said Darrell.

"And it always amuses people--doesn't it?"

Kitty clasped her hands round her knees and looked at him with candor.

"Does it?" said Darrell. "It has been done a good deal."

"Oh, of course," said Kitty, impatiently, "mine's not the proper thing.

You don't imagine I should try and write like Thackeray, do you? Mine's

_real_ people--_real_ things that happened--with just the names

altered."

"Ah!" said Darrell, sitting up--"that sounds exciting. Is it libellous?"

"Well, that's just what I want to know," said Kitty, slowly. "Of course,

I've made a kind of story out of it. But you'd have to be a great fool

not to guess. I've put myself in, and--"

"And Ashe?"

Kitty nodded. "All the novels that are written about politics

nowadays--except Dizzy's--are such nonsense, aren't they? I just wanted

to describe--from the inside--how a real statesman"--she threw up her

head proudly--"lives, and what he does."

"Excellent subject," said Darrell. "Well--anybody else?"

Kitty flushed. "You'll see," she said, uncertainly.

Darrell's involuntary smile was hidden by a bunch of honeysuckle at

which he was sniffing. "May I look?" he asked, stretching out a hand for

the sheets.

She pushed them towards him, half unwilling, half eager, and he began to

turn them over. Apparently it had a thread of story--both slender and

extravagant. And on the thread--Hullo!--here was the fancy ball; he

pounced upon it. A portrait of Lady Parham--Ye powers! he chuckled as he

read. On the next page the Chancellor of the Exchequer--snub-nosed

_parvenu_ and Puritan--admirably caught. Further on a speech of Ashe's

in the House--with caricature to right and caricature to left ... Ah! the

poet!--at last! He bent over the page till Kitty coughed and fidgeted,

and he thought it best to hurry on. But it was war, he perceived--open,

undignified, feminine war. On the next page, the Archbishop of

Canterbury--with Lady Kitty's views on the Athanasian Creed! Heavens!

what a book! Next, Royalty itself, not too respectfully handled. Then

Ashe again--Ashe glorified, Ashe explained, Ashe intrigued against, and

Ashe triumphant--everywhere the centre of the stage, and everywhere, of

course, all unknown to the author, the fool of the piece. Political

indiscretions also, of the most startling kind, as coming from the wife

of a cabinet minister. Allusions, besides, scattered broadcast, to the

scandals of the day--material as far as he could see for a dozen libel

actions. And with it all, much fantastic ability, flashes of wit and

romance, enough to give the book wings beyond its first personal

audience--enough, in fact, to secure to all its scandalous matter the

widest possible chance of fame.

"Well!"

He rolled over on his elbows, and lay staring at the sheets before

him--dumb. What was he to say?

A thought struck him. As far as he could perceive, there was an empty

niche.

"And Lord Parham?"

A smile of mischief broadened on Kitty's lips.

"That'll come," she said--and checked herself. Darrell bowed his face on

his hands and laughed, unseen. To what sacrificial rite was the

unconscious victim hurrying--at that very moment--in the express train

which was to land him at Haggart Station that afternoon?

"Well!" said Kitty, impatiently--"what do you think? Can you help me?"

Darrell looked up.

"You know, Lady Kitty, that book can't be published like that. Nobody

would risk it."

"Well, I suppose they'll tell me what to cut out."

"Yes," said Darrell, slowly, caught by many reflections--"no doubt some

clever fellow will know how near the wind it's possible to sail. But,

anyway, trim it as you like, the book will make a scandal."

"Will it?" Kitty's eyes flashed. She sat up radiant, her breath quick

and defiant.

"I don't see," he resumed, "how you can publish it without consulting

Ashe."

Kitty gave a cry of protest.

"No, no, _no_! Of course he'd disapprove. But then--he soon forgives a

thing, if he thinks it clever. And it is clever, isn't it?--some of it.

He'd laugh--and then it would be all right. _He'd_ never pay out his

enemies, but he couldn't help enjoying it if some one else did--could

he?" She pleaded like a child.

"'No need to forgive them,'" murmured Darrell, as he rolled over on his

back and put his hat over his eyes--"for you would have 'shot them

all.'"

Under the shelter of his hat he tried to think himself clear. What

_really_ were her motives? Partly, no doubt, a childish love of

excitement--partly revenge? The animus against the Parhams was clear in

every page. Cliffe, too, came badly out of it--a fantastic Byronic

mixture of libertine and cad. Lady Kitty had better beware! As far as

he knew, Cliffe had never yet been struck, with impunity to the striker.

If these precious sheets ever appeared, Ashe's position would certainly

be shaken. Poor wretch!--endeavoring to pursue a serious existence,

yoked to such an impish sprite as this! His own fault, after all. That

first night, at Madame d'Estrées', was not her madness written in her

eyes?

"Now tell me, Lady Kitty"--he roused himself to look at her with some

attention--"what do you want me to do?"

"To find me a publisher, and"--she stooped towards him with a laughing

shyness--"to get me some money."

"Money!"

"I've been so awfully extravagant lately," said Kitty, frankly.

"Something really will have to be done. And the book's worth some money,

isn't it?"

"A good deal," said Darrell. Then he added, with emphasis--"I really

can't be responsible for it in any way, Lady Kitty."

"Of course not. I will never, _never_ say I told you! But, you see, I'm

not literary--I don't know in the least how to set about it. If you

would just put me in communication?"

Darrell pondered. None of the well-known publishers, of course, would

look at it. But there were plenty of people who would--and give Lady

Kitty a large sum of money for it, too.

What part, however, could he--Darrell--play in such a transaction?

"I am bound to warn you," he said, at last, looking up, "that your

husband will probably strongly disapprove this book, and that it may do

him harm."

Kitty bit her lip.

"But if I tell nobody who wrote it--and you tell nobody?"

"Ashe would know at once. Everybody would know."

"William would know," his companion admitted, unwillingly. "But I don't

see why anybody else should. You see, I've put myself in--I've said the

most shocking things!"

Darrell replied that she would not find that device of much service to

her.

"However--I can no doubt get an opinion for you."

Kitty, all delight, thanked him profusely.

"You shall have the whole of it before you go--Friday, isn't it?" she

said, eagerly gathering it up.

Darrell was certainly conscious of no desire to burden himself with the

horrid thing. But he was rarely able to refuse the request of a pretty

and fashionable woman, and it flattered his conceit to be the sole

recipient of what might very well turn out to be a political secret of

some importance. Not that he meant to lay himself open to any just

reproach whatever in the matter. He would show it to some fitting

person--to pacify Lady Kitty--write a letter of strong protest to her

afterwards--and wash his hands of it. What might happen then was not his

business.

Meanwhile his inner mind was full of an acrid debate which turned

entirely upon his interview with Ashe of the day before. No doubt, as an

old friend, aware of Lady Kitty's excitable character, he might have

felt it his duty to go straight to Ashe, _coûte que coûte_, and warn

him of what was going on. But what encouragement had been given him to

play so Quixotic a part? Why should he take any particular thought for

Ashe's domestic peace, or Ashe's public place? What consideration had

Ashe shown for _him_? "Tu l'as voulu, Georges Dandin!"

So it ended in his promising to take the MS. to London with him, and let

Lady Kitty know the result of his inquiries. Kitty's dancing step as

they returned to the house betrayed the height of her spirits.

* * * * *

A rumor flew round the house towards the middle of the day that Harry,

the little heir, was worse. Kitty did not appear at luncheon, and the

doctor was sent for. Before he came, it was known only to Margaret

French that Kitty had escaped by herself from the house and could not be

found. Ashe and Lady Tranmore saw the doctor, who prescribed, and would

not admit that there was any cause for alarm. The heat had tried the

child, and Lady Kitty--he looked round the nursery for her in some

perplexity--might be quite reassured.

Margaret found her, wandering in the park--very wild and pale--told her

the doctor's verdict, and brought her home. Kitty said little or

nothing, and was presently persuaded to change her dress for Lord

Parham's arrival. By the time the operation was over she was full as

usual of smiles and chatter, with no trace apparently of the mood which

had gone before.

Lord Parham found the house-party assembled on the lawn, with Kitty in a

three-cornered hat, fantastically garnished at the side with a great

plume of white cock's feathers, presiding at the tea-table.

"Ah!" thought the Premier, as he approached--"now for the tare in Ashe's

wheat!"

Nothing, however, could have been more gracious than Kitty's reception

of him, or more effusive than his response. He took his seat beside her,

a solid and impressive figure, no less closely observed by such of the

habitual guests of the political country-houses as happened to be

present, than by the sprinkling of local clergy and country neighbors to

whom Kitty was giving tea. Lord Parham, though now in the fourth year of

his Premiership, was still something of a mystery to his countrymen;

while for the inner circle it was an amusement and an event that he

should be seen without his wife.

For some time all went well. Kitty's manners and topics were alike

beyond reproach. When presently she inquired politely as to the success

of his Scottish tour, Lord Parham hoped he had not altogether disgraced

himself. But, thank Heaven, it was done. Meanwhile Ashe, he supposed,

had been enjoying the pursuits of a scholar and a gentleman?--lucky

fellow!

"He has been reading the Bible," said Kitty, carelessly, as she handed

cake. "Just now he's in the Acts. That's why, I suppose, he didn't hear

the carriage. John!" She called a footman. "Tell Mr. Ashe that Lord

Parham has arrived!"

The Premier opened astonished eyes.

"Does Ashe generally study the Scriptures of an afternoon?"

Kitty nodded--with her most confiding smile. "When he can. He says"--she

dropped her voice to a theatrical whisper--"the Bible is such a 'd----d

interesting' book!"

Lord Parham started in his seat. Ashe and some of his friends still

faintly recalled, in their too familiar and public use of this

particular naughty word, the lurid vocabulary of the Peel and Melbourne

generation. But in a lady's mouth the effect was prodigious. Lord

Grosville frowned sternly and walked away; Eddie Helston smothered a

burst of laughter; the Dean, startled, broke off a conversation with a

group of archaeological clergymen and came to see what he could do to

keep Lady Kitty in order; while Lady Tranmore flushed deeply, and began

a hasty conversation with Lady Edith Manley. Meanwhile Kitty,

quite unconscious, "went on cutting"--or rather, dispensing

"bread-and-butter"; and Lord Parham changed the subject.

"What a charming house!" he said, unwarily, waving his hand towards the

Haggart mansion. He was short-sighted, and, in truth, saw only that it

was big.

Kitty looked at him in wonder--a friendly and amiable wonder. She said

it was very kind of him to try and spare her feelings, but, really,

anybody might say what they liked of Haggart. She and William weren't

responsible.

Lord Parham, rather nettled, put on his eye-glass, and, being an

obstinate man, still maintained that he saw no reason at all to be

dissatisfied with Haggart, from the æsthetic point of view. Kitty said

nothing, but for the first time a gleam of mockery showed itself in her

changing look.

Lady Tranmore, always nervously on the watch, moved forward at this

point, and Lord Parham, with marked and pompous suavity, transferred his

conversation to her.

Thus assured, as he thought, of a good listener, and delivered from his

uncomfortable hostess, Lord Parham crossed his legs and began to talk at

his ease. The guests round the various tea-tables converged, some

standing and some sitting, and made a circle about the great man. About

Kitty, too, who sat, equally conspicuous, dipping a biscuit in milk, and

teasing her small dog with it. Lord Parham meanwhile described to Lady

Tranmore--at wearisome length--the demonstrations which had attended his

journey south, the railway-station crowds, addresses, and so forth. He

handled the topic in a tone of jocular humility, which but slightly

concealed the vast complacency beneath. Kitty's lip twitched; she fed

Ponto hastily with all possible cakes.

"No one, of course, can keep any count of what he says on these

occasions," resumed Lord Parham, with a gracious smile. "I hope I talked

some sense--"

"Oh, but why?" said Kitty, looking up, her large fawn's eyes bent on the

speaker.

"Why?" repeated Lord Parham, suddenly stiffening. "I don't follow you,

Lady Kitty."

"Anybody can talk sense!" said Kitty, throwing a big bit of muffin at

Ponto's nose. "It's the other thing that's hard--isn't it?"

"Lady Kitty," said the Dean, lifting a finger, "you are plagiarizing

from Mr. Pitt."

"Am I?" said Kitty. "I didn't know."

"I imagine that Mr. Pitt talked sense sometimes," said Lord Parham,

shortly.

"Ah, that was when he was drunk!" said Kitty. "Then he wasn't

responsible."

Lord Parham and the circle laughed--though the Premier's laugh was a

little dry and perfunctory.

"So you worship nonsense, Lady Kitty?"

Kitty nodded sweetly.

"And so does William. Ah, here he is!"

For Ashe appeared, hurrying over the lawn, and Lord Parham rose to greet

his host.

"Upon my word, Ashe, how well you look! _You_ have had some holiday!"

"Which is more than can be said of yourself," said Ashe, with smiling

sympathy. "Well!--how have the speeches gone? Is there anything left of

you? Edinburgh was magnificent!"

He wore his most radiant aspect as he sat down beside his guest; and

Kitty watching him, and already conscious of a renewed and excitable

dislike for her guest, thought William was overdoing it absurdly, and

grew still more restive.

The Premier brought the tips of his fingers lightly together, as he

resumed his seat.

"Oh! my dear fellow, people were very kind--too much so! Yes--I think it

did good--it did good. I should now rest and be thankful--if it weren't

for the Bishops!"

"The Bishops!" said the Rector of the parish standing near. "What have

the Bishops been doing, my lord?"

"Dying," said Kitty, as she fell into an attitude which commanded both

William and Lord Parham. "They do it on purpose."

"Another this morning!" said Ashe, throwing up his hands.

"Oh! they die to plague me," said the Prime Minister, with the air of

one on whom the universe weighs heavy. "There never was such a

conspiracy!"

"You should let William appoint them," said Kitty, leaning her chin upon

her hands and studying Lord Parham with eyes all the more brilliant for

the dark circles which fatigue, or something else, had drawn round them.

"Ah, to be sure!" said Lord Parham, affably. "I had forgotten that Ashe

was our theologian. Take me a walk before dinner!" he added, addressing

his host.

"But you won't take his advice," said Kitty, smiling.

The Premier turned rather sharply.

"How do you know that, Lady Kitty?"

Kitty hesitated--then said, with the prettiest, slightest laugh:

"Lady Parham has such strong views--hasn't she?--on Church questions!"

Lord Parham's feeling was that a more insidiously impertinent question

had never been put to him. He drew himself up.

"If she has, Lady Kitty, I can only say I know very little about them!

She very wisely keeps them to herself."

"Ah!" said Kitty, as her lovely eyebrows lifted, "that shows how little

people know."

"I don't quite understand," said Lord Parham. "To what do you allude,

Lady Kitty?"

Kitty laughed. She raised her eyes to the Rector, a spare High

Churchman, who had retreated uncomfortably behind Lady Tranmore.

"Some one--said to me last week--that Lady Parham had saved the

Church!"

The Prime Minister rose. "I must have a little exercise before dinner.

Your gardens, Ashe--is there time?"

Ashe, scarlet with discomfort and annoyance, carried his visitor off. As

he did so, he passed his wife. Kitty turned her little head, looked at

him half shyly, half defiantly. The Dean saw the look; saw also that

Ashe deliberately avoided it.

The party presently began to disperse. The Dean found himself beside his

hostess--strolling over the lawn towards the house. He observed her

attentively--vexed with her, and vexed for her! Surely she was thinner

than he had ever seen her. A little more, and her beauty would suffer

seriously. Coming he knew not whence, there lit upon him the sudden and

painful impression of something undermined, something consumed from

within.

"Lady Kitty, do you ever rest?" he asked her, unexpectedly.

"Rest!" she laughed. "Why should I?"

"Because you are wearing yourself out."

She shrugged her shoulders.

"Do you ever lie down--alone--and read a book?" persisted the Dean.

"Yes. I have just finished Renan's _Vie de Jésus_!"

Her glance, even with him, kept its note of audacity, but much softened

by a kind of wistfulness.

"Ah! my dear Lady Kitty, let Renan alone," cried the Dean--then with a

change of tone--"but are you speaking truth--or naughtiness?"

"Truth," said Kitty. "But--of course--I am in a temper."

The Dean laughed.

"I see Lord Parham is not a favorite of yours."

Kitty compressed her small lips.

"To think that William should have to take his orders from that man!"

she said, under her breath.

"Bear it--for William's sake," said the Dean, softly, "and,

meanwhile--take my advice--and don't read any more Renan!"

Kitty looked at him curiously.

"I prefer to see things as they are."

The Dean sighed.

"That none of us can do, my dear Lady Kitty. No one can satisfy his

_intelligence_. But religion speaks to the _will_--and it is the only

thing between us and the void. Don't tamper with it! It is soon gone."

A satirical expression passed over the face of his companion.

"Mine was gone before we had been a month married. William killed it."

The Dean exclaimed:

"I hear always of his interest in religious matters!"

"He cares for nothing so much--and he doesn't believe one single word of

anything! I was brought up in a convent, you know--but William laughed

it all out of me."

"Dear Lady Kitty!"

Kitty nodded. "And now, of course, I know there's nothing in it. Oh! I

_do_ beg your pardon!" she said, eagerly. "I never meant to say anything

rude to _you._ And I must go!" She looked up at an open window on the

second floor of the house. The Dean supposed it was the nursery, and

began to ask after the boy. But before he could frame his question she

was gone, flying over the grass with a foot that scarcely seemed to

touch it.

"Poor child, poor child!" murmured the Dean, in a most genuine distress.

But it was not the boy he was thinking of.

Presently, however, he was overtaken by Miss French, of whom he inquired

how the baby was.

Margaret hesitated. "He seems to lose strength," she said, sadly. "The

doctor declares there is no danger, unless--"

"Unless what?"

"Oh! but it's so unlikely!" was her hasty reply. "Don't let's think of

it."

* * * * *

Kitty was just giving a last look at herself in the large mirror which

lined half one of the sides of her room when Ashe invaded her. She

glanced at him askance a little, and when the maid had gone Kitty

hurriedly gathered up gloves and fan and prepared to follow her.

"Kitty--one word!"

He caught her in his arm, and held her while he looked down upon her

sparkling dress and half-reluctant face. "Kitty, do be nice to that old

fellow to-night! It's only for two nights. Take him in the right way,

and make a conquest of him--for good. He's been very decent to me in our

walk--though you did say such extraordinary things to him this

afternoon. I believe he really wants to make amends."

"I do hate his white eyelashes so," said Kitty, slowly.

"What does it matter," cried Ashe, angrily, "whether he were a

blue-faced baboon!--for two nights? Just listen to him a little,

Kitty--that's all he wants. And--don't be offended!--but hold your own

small tongue--just a little!"

Kitty pulled herself away.

"I believe I shall do something dreadful," she said, quietly.

A sternness to which Ashe's good-humored face was almost wholly strange

showed itself in his expression.

"Why should you do anything dreadful, please? Lord Parham is your guest,

and my political chief. Is there any woman in England who would not do

her best to be civil to him under the circumstances?"

"I suppose not," said Kitty, with deliberation. "No, I don't think there

can be."

"Kitty!"

For the first time Ashe was conscious of real exasperation. What was to

be done with a temperament and a disposition like this?

"Do you never think that you have it in your power to help me or to ruin

me?" he said, with vehemence.

"Oh yes--often. I mean--to help you--in my own way."

Ashe's laugh was a sound of pure annoyance.

"But please understand, it would be _infinitely_ better if you would

help me, in _my_ way--in the natural, accepted way--the way that

everybody understands."

"The way Lord Parham recommends?" Kitty looked at him quietly. "Never

mind, William. I _am_ trying to help you."

Her eyes shone with the strangest glitter. Ashe was conscious of another

of those sudden stabs of anxiety about her which he had felt at

intervals through the preceding year. His face softened.

"Dear, don't let's talk nonsense! Just look at me sometimes at dinner,

and say to yourself, 'William asks me--for his sake--to be nice to Lord

Parham.'"

He again drew her to him, but she repulsed him almost with violence.

"Why is he here? Why have we people dining? We ought to be alone--in the

dark!"

Her face had become a white mask. Her breast rose and fell, as though

she fought with sobs.

"Kitty--what do you mean?" He recoiled in dismay.

"Harry!"--she just breathed the word between her closed lips.

"My darling!" cried Ashe, "I saw Dr. Rotherham myself this afternoon. He

gave the most satisfactory account, and Margaret told me she had

repeated everything to you. The child will soon be himself again."

"He is _dying_!" said Kitty, in the same low, remote voice, her gaze

still fixed on Ashe.

"Kitty! Don't say such things--don't think them!" Ashe had himself grown

pale. "At any rate"--he turned on her reproachfully--"tell me _why_ you

think them. Confide in me, Kitty. Come and talk to me about the boy. But

three-fourths of the time you behave as though there were nothing the

matter with him--you won't even see the doctor--and then you say a thing

like this!"

She was silent a moment; then with a wild gesture of the head and

shoulders, as of one shaking off a weight, she moved away--drew on her

long gloves--and going to the dressing-table, gave a touch of rouge to

her cheeks.

"Kitty, why did you say that?" Ashe followed her entreatingly.

"I don't know. At least, I couldn't explain. Now, shall we go down?"

Ashe drew a long breath. His frail son held the inmost depths of his

heart.

"You have made the party an abomination to me!" he said, with energy.

"Don't believe me, then--believe the doctor," said Kitty, her face

changing. "And as for Lord Parham, I'll try, William--I'll try."

She passed him--the loveliest of visions--flung him a hand to kiss--and

was gone.

XVI

There could be no question that in all external matters Lord Parham was

that evening magnificently entertained by the Home Secretary and Lady

Kitty Ashe. The chef was extravagantly good; the wines, flowers, and

service lavish to a degree which made both Ashe and Lady Tranmore

secretly uncomfortable. Lady Tranmore in particular detested "show,"

influenced as much by aristocratic instinct as by moral qualms; and

there was to her mind a touch of vulgarity in the entertaining at

Haggart, which might be tolerated in the case of financiers and

_nouveaux riches_, while, as connected with her William and his wife,

who had no need whatever to bribe society, it was unbecoming and

undignified. Moreover, the winter had been marked by a financial crisis

caused entirely by Kitty's extravagance. A large sum of money had had to

be raised from the Tranmore estates; times were not good for the landed

interest, and the head agent had begun to look grave.

If only William would control his wife! But Haggart contained one of

those fine, slowly gathered libraries which make the distinction of so

many English country-houses; and in the intervals of his official work,

which even in holiday time was considerable, Ashe could not be beguiled

from the beloved company of his books to help Kitty sign checks, or

scold her about expenditure.

So Kitty signed and signed; and the smaller was Ashe's balance, the

more, it seemed, did Kitty spend. Then, of course, every few months,

there were deficits which had to be made good. And as to the debts which

accumulated, Lady Tranmore preferred not to think about them. It all

meant future trouble and clipping of wings for William; and it all

entered into that deep and hidden resentment, half anxious love, half

alien temperament, which Elizabeth Tranmore felt towards Ashe's wife.

However--to repeat--Lord Parham, as far as the fleshpots went, was

finely treated. Kitty was in full force, glittering in a spangled dress,

her dazzling face and neck, and the piled masses of her hair, thrown out

in relief against the panelled walls of the dining-room with a

brilliance which might have tempted a modern Rembrandt to paint an

English Saskia. Eddie Helston, on her left, could not take his eyes from

her. And even Lord Parham, much as he disliked her, acknowledged, during

the early courses, that she was handsome, and in her own way--thank God!

it was not the way of any womankind belonging to him--good company.

He saw, too, or thought he saw, that she was anxious to make him amends

for her behavior of the afternoon. She restrained herself, and talked

politics. And within the lines he always observed when talking to women,

lines dictated by a contempt innate and ineradicable, Lord Parham was

quite ready to talk politics too. Then--it suddenly struck him that she

was pumping him, and with great adroitness. Ashe, he knew, wanted an

early place in the session for a particular measure in which he was

interested. Lord Parham had no mind to give him the precedence that he

wanted; was, in fact, determined on something quite different. But he

was well aware by now that Ashe was a person to be reckoned with; and he

had so far taken refuge in vagueness--an amiable vagueness, by which

Ashe, on their walk before dinner, had been much taken in, misled no

doubt by the strength of his own wishes.

And now here was Lady Kitty--whom, by-the-way, it was not at all easy to

take in--trying to "manage" him, to pin him to details, to wheedle him

out of a pledge!

Lord Parham, presently, looked at her with cold, smiling eyes.

"Ah! you are interested in these things, Lady Kitty? Well--tell me your

views. You women have such an instinct--"

--whereby the moth was kept hovering round the flame. Till, in a flash,

Kitty awoke to the fact that while she had been listening happily to her

own voice, taking no notice whatever of the signals which William

endeavored to send her from the other end of the table--while she had

been tripping gayly through one indiscretion after another, betraying

innumerable things as to William's opinions and William's plans that she

had infinitely better not have betrayed--Lord Parham had said nothing,

betrayed nothing, promised nothing. A quiet smile--a courteous nod--and

presently a shade of mockery in the lips--the meaning of them, all in a

moment, burst on Kitty.

Her face flamed. Thenceforward it would be difficult to describe the

dinner. Conversationally, at Kitty's end it became an uproar. She

started the wildest topics, and Lord Parham had afterwards a bruised

recollection as of one who has been dragged or driven, Caliban-like,

through brake and thicket, pinched and teased and pelted by elfish

fingers, without one single uncivil speech or act of overt offence to

which an angry guest could point. With each later course, the Prime

Minister grew stiffer and more silent. Endurance was written in every

line of his fighting head and round, ungraceful shoulders, in his veiled

eyes and stolid mouth. Lady Tranmore gave a gasp of relief when at last

Kitty rose from her seat.

* * * * *

The evening went no better. Lord Parham was set down to cards with

Kitty, Eddie Helston, and Lord Grosville. Lord Grosville, his partner,

played, to the Premier's thinking, like an idiot, and Lady Kitty and the

young man chattered and sparred, so that all reasonable play became

impossible. Lord Parham lost more than he at all liked to lose, and at

half-past ten he pleaded fatigue, refused to smoke, and went to his

room.

Ashe was perfectly aware of the failure of the evening, and the

discomfort of his guest. But he said nothing, and Kitty avoided his

neighborhood. Meanwhile, between him and his mother a certain tacit

understanding began to make itself felt. They talked quietly, in

corners, of the arrangements for the speech and fête of the morrow. So

far, they had been too much left to Kitty. Ashe promised his mother to

look into them. He and she combined for the protection of Lord Parham.

When about one o'clock Ashe went to bed, Kitty either was or pretended

to be fast asleep. The room was in darkness save for the faint

illumination of a night-light, which just revealed to Ashe the delicate

figure of his wife, lying high on her pillows, her cheek and brow hidden

in the confusion of her hair.

One window was wide open to the night, and once more Ashe stood lost in

"recollection" beside it, as on that night in Hill Street, more than a

year before. But the thoughts which on that former occasion had been

still as tragic and unfamiliar guests in a mind that repelled them had

now, alack, lost their strangeness; they entered habitually,

unannounced--frequent, irritating, deplorable.

Had the relation between himself and Kitty ever, in truth, recovered the

shock of that incident on the river--of his night of restlessness, his

morning of agonized alarm, and the story to which he listened on her

return? It had been like some physical blow or wound, easily healed or

conquered for the moment, which then, as time goes on, reveals a hidden

series of consequences.

Consequences, in this case, connected above all with Kitty's own nature

and temperament. The excitement of Cliffe's declaration, of her own

resistance and dramatic position, as between her husband and her lover,

had worked ever since, as a poison in Kitty's mind--Ashe was becoming

dismally certain of it. The absurd incident of the night before with the

photograph had been enough to prove it.

Well, the thing, he supposed, would right itself in time. Meanwhile,

Cliffe had been dismissed, and this foolish young fellow Eddie Helston

must soon follow him. Ashe had viewed the affair so far with an amused

tolerance; if Kitty liked to flirt with babes it was her affair, not

his. But he perceived that his mother was once more becoming restless,

under the general _inconvenance_ of it; and he had noticed distress and

disapproval in the little Dean, Kitty's stanchest friend.

Luckily, no difficulty there! The lad was almost as devoted to

him--Ashe--as he was to Kitty. He was absurd, affected, vain; but there

was no vice in him, and a word of remonstrance would probably reduce him

to abject regret and self-reproach. Ashe intended that his mother should

speak it, and as he made up his mind to ask her help, he felt for the

second time the sharp humiliation of the husband who cannot secure his

own domestic peace, but must depend on the aid of others. Yet how could

he himself go to young Helston? Some men no doubt could have handled

such an incident with dignity. Ashe, with his critical sense for ever

playing on himself and others; with the touch of moral shirking that

belonged to his inmost nature; and, above all, with his half-humorous,

half-bitter consciousness that whoever else might be a hero, he was

none: Ashe, at least, could and would do nothing of the sort. That he

should begin now to play the tyrannous or jealous husband would make him

ridiculous both in his own eyes and other people's.

And yet Kitty must somehow be protected from herself!... Then--as to

politics? Once, in talking with his mother, he had said to her that he

was Kitty's husband first, and a public man afterwards. Was he prepared

now to make the statement with the same simplicity, the same

whole-heartedness?

Involuntarily he moved closer to the bed and looked down on Kitty.

Little, delicate face!--always with something mournful and fretful in

repose.

He loved her surely as much as ever--ah! yes, he loved her. His whole

nature yearned over her, as the wife of his youth, the mother of his

poor boy. Yet, as he remembered the mood in which he had proposed to

her, that defiance of the world and life which had possessed him when he

had made her marry him, he felt himself--almost with bitterness--another

and a meaner man. No!--he was _not_ prepared to lose the world for

her--the world of high influence and ambition upon which he had now

entered as a conqueror. She _must_ so control herself that she did not

ruin all his hopes--which, after all, were hers--and the work he might

do for his country.

What incredible perversity and caprice she had shown towards Lord

Parham! How was he to deal with it--he, William Ashe, with his ironic

temper and his easy standards? What could he say to her but "Love me,

Kitty!--love yourself!--and don't be a little fool! Life might be so

amusing if you would only bridle your fancies and play the game!"

As for loftier things, "self-reverence, self-knowledge,

self-control"--duty--and the passion of high ideals--who was he to prate

about them? The little Dean, perhaps!--most spiritual of worldlings.

Ashe knew himself to be neither spiritual nor a hypocrite. A certain

measure, a certain order and harmony in life--laughter and good-humor

and affection--and, for the fight that makes and welds a man, those

great political and social interests in the midst of which he found

himself--he asked no more, and with these he would have been abundantly

content.

He sighed and frowned, his muscles stiffening unconsciously. Yes, for

both their sakes he must try and play the master with Kitty, ridiculous

as it seemed.

... He turned away, remembering his sick child--and went noiselessly to

the nursery. There, along the darkened passages, he found a night-nurse,

sitting working beside a shaded lamp. The child was sleeping, and the

report was good. Ashe stole on tiptoe to look at him, holding his

breath, then returned to his dressing-room. But a faint call from Kitty

pursued him. He opened the door, and saw her sitting up in bed.

"How is he?"

She was hardly awake, but her expression struck him as very wild and

piteous. He went to her and took her in his arms.

"Sleeping quietly, darling--so must you!"

She sank back on her pillows, his arm still round her.

"I was there an hour ago," she murmured. "I shall soon wake up--"

But for the moment she was asleep again, her fair head lying against his

shoulder. He sat down beside her, supporting her. Suddenly, as he looked

down upon her with mingled passion, tenderness, and pain, a sharp

perception assailed him. How thin she was--a mere feather's weight! The

face was smaller than ever--the hands skin and bone! Margaret French had

once or twice bade him notice this, had spoken with anxiety. He bent

over his wife and observed her attentively. It was merely the effect of

a hot summer, surely, and of a constant nervous fatigue? He would take

her abroad for a fortnight in September, if his official work would let

him, and perhaps leave her in north Italy, or Switzerland, with Margaret

French.

* * * * *

The great day was half-way through, and the throng in Haggart Park and

grounds was at its height. A flower-show in the morning; then a tenants'

dinner with a speech from Ashe; and now, in a marquee erected for the

occasion, Lord Parham was addressing his supporters in the county.

Around him on the platform sat the Whig gentry, the Radical

manufacturers, the town wire-pullers and local agents on whom a great

party depended; in front of him stretched a crowded meeting drawn in

almost equal parts from the coal-mining districts to the north of

Haggart and from the agricultural districts to the south....

The August air was stifling; perspiration shone on the broad brows and

cheeks of the farmers sitting in the front half of the audience; Lord

Parham's gray face was almost white; his harsh voice labored against the

acoustic difficulties of the tent; effort and heat, discomfort and ennui

breathed from the packed benches, and from the short-necked,

large-headed figure of the Premier.

Ashe sat to the speaker's right, outwardly attentive, inwardly ashamed

of his party and his chief. He himself belonged to a new generation, for

whom formulæ that had satisfied their fathers were empty and dead. But

with these formulas Lord Parham was stuffed. A man of average intriguing

ability, he had been raised, at a moment of transition, to the place he

held, by a consummate command of all the meaner arts of compromise and

management, no less than by an invaluable power of playing to the

gallery. He led a party who despised him--and he complacently imagined

that he was the party. His speech on this occasion bristled with

himself, and had, in truth, no other substance; the I's swarmed out upon

the audience like wasps.

Ashe groaned in spirit, "We have the ideas," he thought, "but they are

damned little good to us--it is the Tories who have the men! Ye gods!

must we all talk like this at last?"...

Suddenly, on the other side of the platform, behind Lord Parham, he

noticed that Kitty and Eddie Helston were exchanging signs. Kitty drew

out a tablet, wrote upon it, and, leaning over some white-frocked

children of the Lord Lieutenant who sat behind her, handed the torn leaf

to Helston. But from some clumsiness he let it drop; at the moment a

door opened at the back of the platform, and the leaf, caught by the

draught, was blown back across the bench where Kitty and the house-party

were sitting, and fluttered down to a resting-place on the piece of red

baize wheron Lord Parham was standing--close beside his left foot.

Ashe saw Kitty's start of dismay, her scarlet flush, her involuntary

movement. But Lord Parham had started on his peroration. The rustics

gaped, the gentry sat expressionless, the reporters toiled after the

great man. Kitty all the time kept her eyes fixed on the little white

paper; Ashe no less. Between him and Lord Parham there was first the

Lord Lieutenant, a portly man, very blind and extremely deaf--then a

table with a Liberal peer behind it for chairman.

Lord Parham had resumed his seat. The tent was shaken with cheers, and

the smiling chairman had risen.

"Can you ask Lord Parham to hand me on that paper on the floor," said

Ashe, in the ear of the Lord Lieutenant, "it seems to have dropped from

my portfolio."

The Lord Lieutenant, bending backward behind the chairman as the next

speaker rose, tried to attract Lord Parham's attention. Eddie Helston

was, at the same time, endeavoring to make his way forward through the

crowded seats behind the Prime Minister.

Meanwhile Lord Parham had perceived the paper, raised it, and adjusted

his spectacles. He thought it was a communication from the audience--a

question, perhaps, that he was expected to answer.

"Lord Parham!" cried the Lord Lieutenant again, "would you--"

"Silence, please! Speak up!"--from the audience, who had so far failed

to catch a word of what the new speaker was saying.

"What _is_ the matter? You really can't get through here!" said a

gray-haired dowager crossly to Eddie Helston.

Lord Parham looked at the paper in mystification. It contained these

words:

"Hope you've been counting the 'I's.' I make it fifty-seven.--K."

And in the corner of the paper a thumb-nail sketch of himself,

perorating, with a garland of capital I's round his neck.

The Premier's face became brick-red, then gray again. He folded up the

paper and put it in his waistcoat-pocket.

The meeting had broken up. For the common herd, it was to be followed by

sports in the park and refreshments in big tents. For the gentry, Lady

Kitty had a garden-party to which Royalty was coming. And as her guests

streamed out of the marquee, Lord Parham approached his hostess.

"I think this belongs to you, Lady Kitty." And taking from his pocket a

folded slip of paper he offered it to her.

Kitty looked at him. Her color was high, her eyes sparkled.

"Nothing to do with me!" she said, gayly, as she glanced at it. "But

I'll look for the owner."

"Sorry to give you the trouble," said Lord Parham, with a ceremonious

inclination. Then, turning to Ashe, he remarked that he was extremely

tired--worn out, in fact--and would ask his host's leave to desert the

garden-party while he attended to some most important letters. Ashe

offered to escort him to the house. "On the contrary, look after your

guests," said the Premier, dryly, and, beckoning to the Liberal peer who

had been his chairman, he engaged him in conversation, and the two

presently vanished through a window open to the terrace.

Kitty had been joined meanwhile by Eddie Helston, and the two stood

talking together, a flushed, excited pair. Ashe overtook them.

"May I speak to you a moment, Kitty?"

Eddie Helston glanced at the fine form and stiffened bearing of his

host, understood that his presence counted for something in the

annoyance of Ashe's expression, and departed abashed.

"I should like to see that paper, Kitty, if you don't mind."

His frown and straightened lip brought fresh wildness into Kitty's

expression.

"It is my property." She kept one hand behind her.

"I heard you just disavow that."

Kitty laughed angrily.

"Yes--that's the worst of Lord Parham--one has to tell so many lies for

his _beaux yeux_!"

"You must give it me, please," said Ashe, quietly. "I ought to know

where I am with Lord Parham. He is clearly bitterly offended--by

something, and I shall have to apologize."

Kitty breathed fast.

"Well, don't let's quarrel before the county!" she said, as she turned

aside into a shrubbery walk edged by clipped yews and hidden from the

big lawn. There she paused and confronted him. "How did you know I wrote

it?"

"I saw you write it and throw it."

He stretched out his hand. Kitty hesitated, then slowly unclosed her

own, and held out the small, white palm on which lay the crumpled slip.

Ashe read it and tore it up.

"That game, Kitty, was hardly worth the candle!"

"It was a perfectly harmless remark--and only meant for Eddie! Any one

else than Lord Parham would have laughed. _Then_ I might have begged his

pardon."

"It is what you ought to do now," said Ashe. "A little note from you,

Kitty--you could write it to perfection--"

"Certainly not," said Kitty, hastily, locking her hands behind her.

"You prefer to have failed in hospitality and manners," he said,

bitterly. "Well, I'm afraid if you don't feel any disgrace in it I do.

Lord Parham in our _guest_!"

And Ashe turned on his heel and would have left her, when Kitty caught

him by the arm.

"William!"

She had grown very pale.

"Yes."

"You've never spoken to me like that before, William--never! But--as I

told you long ago, you can stop it all if you like--in a moment."

"I don't know what you mean, Kitty--but we mustn't stay arguing here any

longer--"

"No!--but--don't you remember? I told you, you can always send me away.

Then I shouldn't be putting spokes in your wheel."

"I don't deny," said Ashe, slowly, "it might be wisest if, next spring,

you stayed here, for part at least of the session--or abroad. It is

certainly difficult carrying on politics under these conditions. I

could, of course, come backward and forward--"

Kitty's brown eyes that were fixed upon his face wavered a little, and

she grew even whiter.

"Very well. That would be a kind of separation, wouldn't it?"

"There would be no need to call it by any such name. Oh! Kitty!" cried

Ashe, "why can't you behave like a reasonable woman?"

"Separation," she repeated, steadily. "I know that's what your mother

wants."

A wave of sound reached them amid the green shadow of the yews. The

cheers that heralded Royalty had begun.

"Come!" said Kitty.

And she flew across the grass, reaching her place by the central tent

just as the Royalties drove up.

The Prime Minister sulked in-doors; and Kitty, with the most engaging

smiles, made his apologies. The heat--the fatigue of the speech--a

crushing headache, and a doctor's order!--he begged their Royal

Highnesses to excuse him. The Royal Highnesses were at first astonished,

inclined, perhaps, to take offence. But the party was so agreeable, and

Lady Kitty so charming a hostess, that the Premier's absence was soon

forgotten, and as the day cooled to a delicious evening, and the most

costly bands from town discoursed a melting music, as garlanded boats

appeared upon the river inviting passengers, and, with the dusk,

fireworks began to ascend from a little hill; as the trees shone green

and silver and rose-color in the Bengal lights, and amid the sweeping

clouds of smoke the wide stretches of the park, the close-packed groups

of human beings, appeared and vanished like the country and creatures of

a dream--the success of Lady Kitty's fête, the fame of her gayety and

her beauty, filled the air. She flashed hither and thither, in a dress

embroidered with wild roses and a hat festooned with them--attended

always by Eddie Helston, by various curates who cherished a hopeless

attachment to her, and by a fat German grand-duke, who had come in the

wake of the Royalties.

Her cleverness, her resource, her organizing power were lauded to the

skies, Royalty was gracious, and the grand-duke resentfully asked an

aide-de-camp on the way home why he had not been informed that such a

pretty person awaited him.

"I should den haf looked beforehand--as vel as tinking behind," said the

grand-duke, as he wrapped himself sentimentally in his military cloak,

to meditate on Lady Kitty's brown eyes.

Meanwhile Lord Parham remained closeted in his sitting-room with his

secretary. Ashe tried to gain admittance, but in vain. Lord Parham

pleaded great fatigue and his letters; and asked for a _Bradshaw_.

"His lordship has inquired if there is a train to-night," said the

little secretary, evidently much flustered.

Ashe protested. And, indeed, as it turned out, there was no train worth

the taking. Then Lord Parham sent a message that he hoped to appear at

dinner.

Kitty locked her door while she was dressing, and Ashe, whose mind was a

confusion of many feelings--anger, compunction, and that fascination

which in her brilliant moods she exercised over him no less than over

others--could get no speech with her.

They met on the threshold of the child's room, she coming out, he going

in. But she wrenched herself from him and would say nothing. The report

of the little boy was good; he smiled at his father, and Ashe felt a

cooling balm in the touch of his soft hands and lips. He descended--in a

more philosophical mind; inclined, at any rate, to "damn" Lord Parham.

What a fool the man must be! Why couldn't he have taken it with a laugh,

and so turned the tables on Kitty?

Was there any good to be got out of apologizing? Ashe supposed he must

attempt it some time that night. A precious awkward business! But

relations had got to be restored somehow.

Lady Tranmore overtook him on the way down-stairs. In the press of the

afternoon they had hardly seen each other.

"What is really wrong with Lord Parham, William?" she asked him,

anxiously. Ashe hesitated, then whispered a word or two in her ear,

begging her to keep the great man in play for the evening. He was to

take her in, while Kitty would fall to the Bishop of the diocese.

"She gets on perfectly with the clergy," said Lady Tranmore, with an

involuntary sigh. Then, as the sense of humor was strong in both, they

laughed. But it was a chilly and perfunctory laughter.

They had no sooner passed into the main hall than Kitty came running

down-stairs, with a large packet in her hand.

"Mr. Darrell!"

"At your service!" said Darrell, emerging from the shadows of one of the

broad corridors of the ground-floor.

"Take it, please!" said Kitty, panting a little, as she gave the packet

into his hands. "If I look at it any more, I _might_ burn it!"

"Suppose you do!"

"No, no!" said Kitty, pushing the bundle away, as he laughingly tendered

it. "I must see what happens!"

"Is the gap filled?"

She laid her finger on her lips. Her eyes danced. Then she hurried on to

the drawing-room.

Whether it were the soothing presence of the clergy or no, certainly

Kitty was no less triumphant at dinner than she had been in the

afternoon. The chorus of fun and pleasure that surrounded her, while he

himself sat, tired and bored, between Lady Edith Manley and Lady

Tranmore, did but make her offence the greater in the eyes of Lord

Parham. He had so far buried it in a complete and magnificent silence.

The meeting between him and his hostess before dinner had been marked by

a strict conformity to all the rules. Kitty had inquired after his

headache; Lord Parham expressed his regrets that he had missed so

brilliant a party; and Kitty, flirting her fan, invented messages from

the Royalties which, as most of those present knew, the Royalties had

been far too well amused to think of. Then after this _pas seul_, in the

presence of the crowded drawing-room, had been duly executed, Kitty

retired to her Bishop, and Lord Parham led forth Lady Tranmore.

* * * * *

"What a lovely moon!" said Lady Edith Manley to the Dean. "It makes even

this house look romantic."

They were walking outside the drawing-room windows, on a terrace which

was, indeed, the only feature of the Haggart façade which possessed some

architectural interest. A low balustrade of terra-cotta, copied from a

famous Italian villa, ran round it, broken by large terra-cotta pots now

filled with orange-trees. Here and there between the orange-trees were

statues transported from Naples in the late eighteenth century by a

former Lord Tranmore. There was a Ceres and a Diana, a Vestal Virgin, an

Athlete, and an Antinous, now brought into strange companionship under

the windows of this ugly English house. Chipped and blackened as they

were, and, to begin with, of a mere decorative importance, they still

breathed into the English evening a note of Italy or Greece, of things

lovely and immortal. The lamps in the sitting-rooms streamed out through

the widely opened windows upon the terrace, checkering the marble

figures, which now emerged sharply in the light, and now withdrew in the

gloom; while at one point they shone plainly upon an empty pedestal

before which the Dean and his companion paused.

The Dean looked at the inscription. "What a pity! This once held a

statue of Hebe holding a torch. It was struck by lightning fifty years

ago."

"Lady Kitty might stand for her to-night," said Edith Manley.

For Kitty, the capricious, had appeared at dinner in a _quasi_-Greek

dress, white, soft, and flowing, without an ornament. The Dean

acquiesced, but rather sadly.

"I wish she had the bloom of Hebe! My dear Lady Edith, our hostess looks

_ill_!"

"Does she? I can't tell--I admire her so!" said the woman beside him,

upon whose charming eyes some fairy had breathed kindness and optimism

from her cradle.

"_Ouf!_" cried Kitty, as she sprang across the sill of the window behind

them. "They're _all_ gone! The Bishop wishes me to become a

vice-president of the Women's Diocesan Association. And I've promised

three curates to open bazaars. _Ah, mon Dieu!_" She raised her white

arms with a wild gesture, and then beckoned to Eddie Helston, who was

close beside her.

"Shall we try our dance?"

The young men of the house, a group of young guardsmen and diplomats,

gathered round, laughing and clapping. Kitty's dancing had become famous

during the winter as one of her many extravagances. She no longer

recited; literature bored her; motion was the only poetry. So she had

been carefully instructed by a _danseuse_ from the Opera, and in many

points, so the enthusiasts declared, had bettered her instructions. She

was now in love with a tempestuous Spanish dance, taught her by a gypsy

_señorita_ who had been one of the sensations of the London season. It

required a partner, and she had been practising it with young Helston,

for several mornings past, in the empty ballroom. Helston had spread its

praises abroad; and all Haggart desired to see it.

"There!" said Kitty, pointing her partner to a particular spot on the

terrace. "I think that will do. Where are the castanets, I wonder?"

"Kitty!" said a voice behind her. Ashe emerged from the drawing-room.

"Kitty, please! It is nearly midnight. Everybody is tired--and you

yourself must be worn out! Say good-night, and let us all go to bed."

She turned. Willam's voice was low, but peremptory. She shook back her

hair from her temples and neck, with the gesture he had learned to

dread.

"Nobody's tired--and nobody wants to go to bed. Please stand out of the

way, William. I want plenty of room for my steps."

And she began pirouetting, as though to try the capacities of the space,

humming to herself.

"Helston--this must be, please, for another night," said Ashe,

resolutely, in the young man's ear. "Lady Kitty is much too tired."

Then to Lady Edith, and the Dean--"Lady Edith, it would be very kind of

you to persuade my wife to go to bed. She never knows when she is done!"

Lady Edith warmly acquiesced, and, hurrying up to Kitty, she tried to

persuade her in soft, caressing phrases.

"I stand on my rights!" said the Dean, following her. "If my hostess is

used up to-night, there'll be no hostess for me to-morrow."

Kitty looked at them all, silent--her head bending forward, a curious

_méchant_ look in the eyes that shone beneath the slightly frowning

brows. Meanwhile, by her previous order, a footman had brought out two

silver lamps and placed them on a small table a little way behind her.

Whether it was from some instinctive sense of the beauty of the small

figure in the slender, floating dress under the deep blue of the night

sky and amid the romantic shadows and lights of the terrace--or from

some divination of things significant and hidden--it would be hard to

say; but the group of spectators had fallen back a little from Kitty, so

that she stood alone, a picture lit from the left by the lamps just

brought in.

The Dean looked at her--troubled by her wild aspect and the evident

conflict between her and Ashe. Then an idea flashed into his mind,

filled always, like that of an innocent child, with the images of poetry

and romance.

"One moment!" he said, raising his hand. "Lady Kitty, you spoil us!

After amusing us all day, now you would dance for us all night. But your

guests won't let you! We love you too well, and we want a bit of you

left for to-morrow. Never mind! You offered us a dance--you bring us a

vision--and a poem!--Friends!"

He turned to those crowding round him, his white hair glistening in the

lamplight, his delicate face, so old and yet so eager, the smile on his

kind lips, and all the details of his Dean's dress--apron and

knee-breeches, slender legs and silver buckles--thrown out in sharp

relief upon the dark....

"Friends! you see this pedestal. Once Hebe, the cup-bearer of the gods,

stood there. Then--ungrateful Zeus smote her, and she fell! But the

Hours and the Graces bore her safe away, into a golden land, and now

they bring her back again. Behold her!--Hebe reborn!"

He bowed, his courtly hand upon his breast, and a wave of laughter and

applause ran through the young group round him as their eyes turned from

the speaker to the exquisite figure of Kitty. Lady Edith smiled kindly,

clapping her soft hands. Mrs. Winston, the Dean's wife, had eyes only

for the Dean. In the background Lady Tranmore watched every phase of

Kitty's looks, and Lord Grosville walked back into the dining-room,

growling unutterable things to Darrell as he passed.

Kitty raised her head to reply. But the Dean checked her. Advancing a

step or two, he saluted her again--profoundly.

"Dear Lady Kitty!--dear bringer of light and ambrosia!--rest, and

good-night! Your guests thank you by me, with all their hearts. You have

been the life of their day, the spirit of their mirth. Good-night to

Hebe!--and three cheers for Lady Kitty!"

Eddie Helston led them, and they rang against the old house. Kitty with

a fluttering smile kissed her hand for thanks, and the Dean saw her look

round--dart a swift glance at Ashe. He stood against the window-frame,

in shadow, motionless, his arms folded.

Then suddenly Kitty sprang forward.

"Give me that lamp!" she said to the young footman behind her.

And in a second she had leaped upon the low wall of the terrace and on

the vacant pedestal. The lad to whom she had spoken lost his head and

obeyed her. He raised the lamp. She stooped and took it. Ashe, who was

now standing in the open window with his back to the terrace, turned

round, saw, and rushed forward.

"Kitty!--put it down!"

"Lady Kitty!" cried the Dean, in dismay, while all behind him held their

breath.

"Stand back!" said Kitty, "or I shall drop it!" She held up the lamp,

straight and steady. Ashe paused--in an agony of doubt what to do, his

whole soul concentrated on the slender arm and on the brightly burning

lamp.

"If you make me speeches," said Kitty, "I must reply, mustn't I? (Keep

back, William!--I'm all right.) Hebe thanks you, please--_mille fois_!

She herself hasn't been happy--and she's afraid she hasn't been good!

_N'importe!_ It's all done--and finished. The play's over!--and the

lights go out!"

She waved the lamp above her head.

"Kitty! for God's sake!" cried Ashe, rushing to her.

"She is mad!" said Lord Parham, standing at the back. "I always knew

it!"

The other spectators passed through a second of anguish. The bright

figure on the pedestal wavered; one moment, and it seemed as though the

lamp must descend crashing upon the head and neck and the white dress

beneath it; the next, it had fallen from Kitty's hand--fallen away from

her--wide and safe--into the depths of the garden below. A flash of wild

light rose from the burning oil and from the dry shrubs amid which it

fell. Kitty, meanwhile, swayed--and dropped--heavily--unconscious--into

William Ashe's arms.

* * * * *

Kitty barely recovered life and sense during the night that followed.

And while she was still unconscious her boy passed away. The poor babe,

all ignorant of the straits in which his mother lay, was seized with

convulsions in the dawn, and gave up his frail life gathered to his

father's breast.

Some ten weeks later, towards the end of October, society knew that the

Home Secretary and Lady Kitty had started for Italy--bound first of all

for Venice. It was said that Lady Kitty was a wreck, and that it was

doubtful whether she would ever recover the sudden and tragic death of

her only child.