Читать книгу The Marriage of William Ashe - Mrs. Humphry Ward - Страница 10

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Rather more than a fortnight after the evening at Madame d'Estrées', William Ashe found himself in a Midland train on his way to the Cambridgeshire house of Lady Grosville. While the April country slipped past him—like some blanched face to which life and color are returning—Ashe divided his time between an idle skimming of the Saturday papers and a no less idle dreaming of Kitty Bristol. He had seen her two or three times since his first introduction to her—once at a ball to which Lady Grosville had taken her, and once on the terrace of the House of Commons, where he had strolled up and down with her for a most amusing and stimulating hour, while her mother entertained a group of elderly politicians. And the following day she had come alone—her own choice—to take tea with Lady Tranmore, on that lady's invitation, as prompted by her son. Ashe himself had arrived towards the end of the visit, and had found a Lady Kitty in the height of the fashion, stiff mannered, and flushed to a deep red by her own consciousness that she could not possibly be making a good impression. At sight of him she relaxed, and talked a great deal, but not wisely; and when she was gone, Ashe could get very little opinion of any kind from his mother, who had, however, expressed a wish that she should come and visit them in the country.

Since then he frankly confessed to himself that in the intervals of his new official and administrative work he had been a good deal haunted by memories of this strange child, her eyes, her grace—even in her fits of proud shyness—and the way in which, as he had put her into her cab after the visit to Lady Tranmore, her tiny hand had lingered in his, a mute, astonishing appeal. Haunted, too, by what he heard of her fortunes and surroundings. What was the real truth of Madame d'Estrées' situation? During the preceding weeks some ugly rumors had reached Ashe of financial embarrassment in that quarter, of debts risen to mountainous height, of crisis and possible disappearance. Then these rumors were met by others, to the effect that Colonel Warington, the old friend and support of the d'Estrées' household, had come to the rescue, that the crisis had been averted, and that the three weekly evenings, so well known and so well attended, would go on; and with this phase of the story there mingled, as Ashe was well aware, not the slightest breath of scandal, in a case where, so to speak, all was scandal.

And meanwhile what new and dolorous truths had Lady Kitty been learning as to her mother's history and her mother's position? By Jove! it was hard upon the girl. Darrell was right. Why not leave her to her French friends and relations?—or relinquish her to Lady Grosville? Madame d'Estrées had seen little or nothing of her for years. She could not, therefore, be necessary to her mother's happiness, and there was a real cruelty in thus claiming her, at the very moment of her entrance into society, where Madame d'Estrées could only stand in her way. For although many a man whom the girl might profitably marry was to be found among the mother's guests, the influences of Madame d'Estrées' "evenings" were certainly not matrimonial. Still the unforeseen was surely the probable in Lady Kitty's case. What sort of man ought she to marry—what sort of man could safely take the risks of marrying her—with that mother in the background?

He descended at the way-side station prescribed to him, and looked round him for fellow-guests—much as the card-player examines his hand. Mary Lyster, a cabinet minister—filling an ornamental office and handed on from ministry to ministry as a kind of necessary appendage, the public never knew why—the minister's second wife, an attaché from the Austrian embassy, two members of Parliament, and a well-known journalist—Ashe said to himself flippantly that so far the trumps were not many. But he was always reasonably glad to see Mary, and he went up to her, cared for her bag, and made her put on her cloak, with cousinly civility. In the omnibus on the way to the house he and Mary gossiped in a corner, while the cabinet minister and the editor went to sleep, and the two members of Parliament practised some courageous French on the Austrian attaché.

"Is it to be a large party?" he asked of his companion.

"Oh! they always fill the house. A good many came down yesterday."

"Well, I'm not curious," said Ashe, "except as to one person."

"Who?"

"Lady Kitty Bristol."

Mary Lyster smiled.

"Yes, poor child, I heard from the Grosville girls that she was to be here."

"Why 'poor child'?"

"I don't know. Quite the wrong expression, I admit. It should be 'poor hostess.'"

"Oh!—the Grosvilles complain?"

"No. They're only on tenter-hooks. They never know what she will do next."

"How good for the Grosvilles!"

"You think society is the better for shocks?"

"Lady Grosville can do with them, anyway. What a masterful woman! But I'll back Lady Kitty."

"I haven't seen her yet," said Mary. "I hear she is a very odd-looking little thing."

"Extremely pretty," said Ashe.

"Really?" Mary lifted incredulous eyebrows. "Well, now I shall know what you admire."

"Oh, my tastes are horribly catholic—I admire so many people," said Ashe, with a glance at the well-dressed elegance beside him. Mary colored a little, unseen; and the rattle of the carriage as it entered the covered porch of Grosville Park cut short their conversation.

"Well, I'm glad you got in," said Lady Grosville, in her full, loud voice, "because we are connections. But of course I regard the loss of a seat to our side just now as a great disaster."

"Very grasping, on your part!" said Ashe. "You've had it all your own way lately. Think of Portsmouth!"

Lady Grosville, however, as she met his bantering look, did not find herself at all inclined to think of Portsmouth. She was much more inclined to think of William Ashe. What a good-looking fellow he had grown! She heaved an inward sigh, of mingled envy and appreciation, directed towards Lady Tranmore.

Poor Susan indeed had suffered terribly in the death of her eldest son. But the handsomer and abler of the two brothers still remained to her—and the estate was safe. Lady Grosville thought of her own three daughters, plain and almost dowerless; and of that conceited young man, the heir, whom she could hardly persuade her husband to invite, once a year, for appearance sake.

"Why are we so early?" said Ashe, looking at his watch. "I thought I should be disgracefully late."

For he and Lady Grosville had the library to themselves. It was a fine, book-walled room, with giallo antico columns and Adam decoration; and in its richly colored lamp-lit space, the seated figure—stiffly erect—of Lady Grosville, her profile, said by some to be like a horse and by others to resemble Savonarola, the cap of old Venice point that crowned her grizzled hair, her black velvet dress, and the long-fingered, ugly, yet distinguished hands which lay upon her lap, told significantly; especially when contrasted with the negligent ease and fresh-colored youth of her companion.

Grosville Park was rich in second-rate antiques; and there was a Greco-Roman head above the bookcase with which Ashe had been often compared. As he stood now leaning against the fireplace, the close-piled curls, and eyes—somewhat "à fleur de tête"—of the bust were undoubtedly repeated with some closeness in the living man. Those whom he had offended by some social carelessness or other said of him when they wished to run him down, that he was "floridly" handsome; and there was some truth in it.

"Didn't you get the message about dinner?" said Lady Grosville. Then, as he shook his head: "Very remiss of Parkin. I always tell him he loses his head directly the party goes into double figures. We had to put off dinner a quarter of an hour because of Kitty Bristol, who missed her train at St. Pancras, and only arrived half an hour ago. By-the-way, I suppose you have already seen her—at that woman's?"

"I met her a week or two ago, at Madame d'Estrées'," said Ashe, apparently preoccupied with something wrong in the set of his white waistcoat.

"What did you think of her?"

"A charming young lady," said Ashe, smiling. "What else should I think?"

"A lamb thrown to the wolves," said Lady Grosville, grimly. "How that woman could do such a thing!"

"I saw nothing lamblike about Lady Kitty," said Ashe. "And do you include me among the wolves?"

Lady Grosville hesitated a moment, then stuck to her colors.

"You shouldn't go to such a house," she said, boldly—"I suppose I may say that without offence, William, as I've known you from a boy."

"Say anything you like, my dear Lady Grosville! So you—believe evil things—of Madame d'Estrées?"

His tone was light, but his eyes sought the distant door, as though invoking some fellow-guest to appear and protect him.

Lady Grosville did not answer. Ashe's look returned to her, and he was startled by the expression of her face. He had always known and unwillingly admired her for a fine Old Testament Christian, one from whom the language of the imprecatory Psalms with regard to her enemies, personal and political, might have flowed more naturally than from any other person he knew, of the same class and breeding. But this loathing—this passion of contempt—this heat of memory!—these were new indeed, and the fire of them transfigured the old, gray face.

"I have known a fair number of bad people," said Lady Grosville, in a low voice—"and a good many wicked women. But for meanness and vileness combined, the things I know of the woman who was Blackwater's wife have no equal in my experience!"

There was a moment's pause. Then Ashe said, in a voice as serious as her own:

"I am sorry to hear you say that, partly because I like Madame d'Estrées, and partly—because—I was particularly attracted by Lady Kitty."

Lady Grosville looked up sharply. "Don't marry her, William!—don't marry her! She comes of a bad stock."

Ashe recovered his gayety.

"She is your own niece. Mightn't a man dare—on that guarantee?"

"Not at all," said Lady Grosville, unappeased. "I was a hop out of kin. Besides—a Methodist governess saved me; she converted me, at eighteen, and I owe her everything. But my brothers—and all the rest of us!" She threw up her eyes and hands. "What's the good of being mealy mouthed about it? All the world knows it. A good many of us were mad—and I sometimes think I see more than eccentricity in Kitty."

"Who was Madame d'Estrées?" said Ashe. Why should he wince so at the girl's name?—in that hard mouth?

Lady Grosville smiled.

"Well, I can tell you a good deal about that," she said. "Ah!—another time!"

For the door opened, and in came a group of guests, with a gush of talk and a rustling of silks and satins.

Everybody was gathered; dinner had been announced; and the white-haired and gouty Lord Grosville was in a state of seething impatience that not even the mild-voiced Dean of the neighboring cathedral, engaged in complimenting him on his speech at the Diocesan Conference, could restrain.

"Adelina, need we wait any longer?" said the master of the house, turning an angry eye upon his wife.

"Certainly not—she has had ample time," said Lady Grosville, and rang the bell beside her.

Suddenly there was a whirlwind of noise in the hall, the angry barking of a small dog, the sound of a girl's voice laughing and scolding, the swish of silk skirts. A scandalized butler, obeying Lady Grosville's summons, threw the door open, and in burst Lady Kitty.

"Oh! I'm so sorry," said the new-comer, in a tone of despair. "But I couldn't leave him up-stairs, Aunt Lina! He'd eaten one of my shoes, and begun upon the other. And Julie's afraid of him. He bit her last week. May he sit on my knee? I know I can keep him quiet!"

"A SLIM GIRL IN WHITE AT THE FAR END OF THE LARGE ROOM"

Every conversation in the library stopped. Twenty amazed persons turned to look. They beheld a slim girl in white at the far end of the large room struggling with a gray terrier puppy which she held under her left arm, and turning appealing eyes towards Lady Grosville. The dog, half frightened, half fierce, was barking furiously. Lady Kitty's voice could hardly be heard through the din, and she was crimson with the effort to control her charge. Her lips laughed; her eyes implored. And to add to the effect of the apparition, a marked strangeness of dress was at once perceived by all the English eyes turned upon her. Lady Kitty was robed in the extreme of French fashion, which at that moment was a fashion of flounces; she was much décolletée; and her fair, abundant hair, carried to a great height, and arranged with a certain calculated wildness around her small face, was surmounted by a large scarlet butterfly which shone defiantly against the dark background of books.

"Kitty!" said Lady Grosville, advancing indignantly, "what a dreadful noise! Pray give the dog to Parkin at once."

Lady Kitty only held the struggling animal tighter.

"Please, Aunt Lina!—I'm afraid he'll bite! But he'll be quite good with me."

"Why did you bring him, Kitty? We can't have such a creature at dinner!" said Lady Grosville, angrily.

Lord Grosville advanced behind his wife.

"How do you do, Kitty? Hadn't you better put down the dog and come and be introduced to Mr. Rankine, who is to take you in to dinner?"

Lady Kitty shook her fair head, but advanced, still clinging to the dog, gave a smile and a nod to Ashe, and a bow to the young Tory member presented to her.

"You don't mind him?" she said, a flash of laughter in her dark eyes. "We'll manage him between us, won't we?"

The young man, dazzled by her prettiness and her strangeness, murmured a hopeful assent. Lord Grosville, with the air of a man determined on dinner though the skies fall, offered his arm to Lady Edith Manley, the wife of the cabinet minister, and made for the dining-room. The stream of guests followed; when suddenly the puppy, perceiving on the floor a ball of wool which had rolled out of Lady Grosville's work-table, escaped in an ecstasy of mischief from his mistress's arm and flew upon the ball. Kitty rushed after him; the wool first unrolled, then caught; the table overturned and all its contents were flung pell-mell in the path of Lady Grosville, who, on the arm of the amused and astonished minister, was waiting in restrained fury till her guests should pass.

"I shall never get over this," said Lady Kitty, as she leaned back in her chair, still panting, and quite incapable of eating any of the foods that were being offered to her in quick succession.

"I don't know that you deserve to," said Ashe, turning a face upon her which was as grave as he could make it. The attention of every one else round the room was also in truth occupied with his companion. There was, indeed, a general buzz of conversation and a general pretence that Lady Kitty's proceedings might now be ignored. But in reality every guest, male or female, kept a stealthy watch on the red butterfly and the sparkling face beneath it; and Ashe was well aware of it.

"I vow it was not my fault," said Kitty, with dignity. "I was not allowed to have the dog I should have had. You'd never have found a dog of St. Hubert condescending to bedroom slippers! But as I had to have a dog—and Colonel Warington gave me this one three days ago—and he has already ruined half maman's things, and no one could manage him but me, I just had to bring him, and trust to Providence."

"I have been here a good many times," said Ashe, "and I never yet saw a dog in the sanctuary. Do you know that Pitt once wrote a speech in the library?"

"Did he? I'm sure it never made such a stir as Ponto did." Kitty's face suddenly broke into laughter, and she hid it a moment in her hands.

"You brazen it out," said Ashe; "but how are you going to appease Lady Grosville?"

Kitty ceased to laugh. She drew herself up, and looked seriously, observantly at her aunt.

"I don't know. But I must do it somehow. I don't want any more worries."

So changed were her tone and aspect that Ashe turned a friendly examining look upon her.

"Have you been worried?" he said, in a lower voice.

She shrugged her shoulders and made no reply. But presently she impatiently reclaimed his attention, snatching him from the lady he had taken in to dinner, with no scruple at all.

"Will you come a walk with me to-morrow morning?"

"Proud," said Ashe. "What time?"

"As soon as we can get rid of these people," she said, her eye running round the table. Then as it paused and lingered on the face of Mary Lyster opposite, she abruptly asked him who that lady might be.

Ashe informed her.

"Your cousin?" she said, looking at him with a slight frown. "Your cousin? I don't—well, I don't think I shall like her."

"That's a great pity," said Ashe.

"For me?" she said, distrustfully.

"For both, of course! My mother's very fond of Miss Lyster. She's often with us."

"Oh!" said Kitty, and looked again at the face opposite. Then he heard her say behind her fan, half to herself and half to him:

"She does not interest me in the least! She has no ideas! I'm sure she has no ideas. Has she?"

She turned abruptly to Ashe.

"Every one calls her very clever."

Kitty looked contempt.

"That's nothing to do with it. It's not the clever people who have ideas."

Ashe bantered her a little on the meaning of her words, till he presently found that she was too young and unpractised to be able to take his thrusts and return them, with equanimity. She could make a daring sally or reply; but it was still the raw material of conversation; it wanted ease and polish. And she was evidently conscious of it herself, for presently her cheek flushed and her manner wavered.

"I suppose you—everybody—thinks her very agreeable?" she said, sharply, her eyes returning to Miss Lyster.

"She is a most excellent gossip," said Ashe. "I always go to her for the news."

Kitty glanced again.

"I can see that already she detests me."

"In half an hour?"

The girl nodded.

"She has looked at me twice—about. But she has made up her mind—and she never changes." Then with an abrupt alteration of note she looked round the room. "I suppose your English dining-rooms are all like this? One might be sitting in a hearse. And the pictures—no! Quelles horreurs!"

She raised her shoulders again impetuously, frowning at a huge full-length opposite of Lord Grosville as M.F.H., a masterpiece indeed of early Victorian vulgarity.

Then suddenly, hastily, with that flashing softness which so often transformed her expression, she turned towards him, trying to make amends.

"But the library—that was bien—ah! tr-rès, tr-rès bien!"

Her r's rolled a little as she spoke, with a charming effect, and she looked at him radiantly, as though to strike and to make amends were equally her prerogative, and she asked no man's leave.

"You've not yet seen what there is to see here," said Ashe, smiling. "Look behind you."

The girl turned her slim neck and exclaimed. For behind Ashe's chair was the treasure of the house. It was a "Dance of Children," by one of the most famous of the eighteenth-century masters. From the dark wall it shone out with a flower-like brilliance, a vision of color and of grace. The children danced through a golden air, their bodies swaying to one of those "unheard melodies" of art, sweeter than all mortal tunes; their delicate faces alive with joy. The sky and grass and trees seemed to caress them; a soft sunlight clothed them; and flowers brushed their feet.

Kitty turned back again and was silent. Was it Ashe's fancy, or had she grown pale?

"Did you like it?" he asked her. She turned to him, and for the second time in their acquaintance he saw her eyes floating in tears.

"It is too beautiful!" she said, with an effort—almost an angry effort. "I don't want to see it again."

"I thought it would give you pleasure," said Ashe, gently, suddenly conscious of a hope that she was not aware of the slight look of amusement with which Mary Lyster was contemplating them both.

"So it did," said Kitty, furtively applying her lace handkerchief to her tears; "but"—her voice dropped—"when one's unhappy—very unhappy—things like that—things like Heaven—hurt! Oh, what a fool I am!" And she sat straightly up, looking round her.

There was a pause; then Ashe said, in another voice:

"Look here, you know this won't do. I thought we were to be cousins."

"Well?" said Kitty, indifferently, not looking at him.

"And I understood that I was to be taken into respectable cousinly counsel?"

"Well?" said Kitty again, crumbling her bread. "I can't do it here, can I?"

Ashe laughed.

"Well, anyhow, we're going to sample the garden to-morrow morning, aren't we?"

"I suppose so," said Kitty. Then, after a moment, she looked at her right-hand neighbor, the young politician to whom as yet she had scarcely vouchsafed a word.

"What's his name?" she asked, under her breath. Ashe repeated it.

"Perhaps I ought to talk to him?"

"Of course you ought," said Ashe, with smiling decision, and turning to the lady whom he had brought in he left her free.

When the ladies rose, Lady Grosville led the way to the large drawing-room, a room which, like the library, had some character, and a thin elegance of style, not, however, warmed and harmonized by the delightful presence of books. The walls, blue and white in color, were panelled in stucco relief. A few family portraits, stiff handlings of stiff people, were placed each in the exact centre of its respective panel. There were a few cases of china and a few polished tables. A crimson Brussels carpet, chosen by Lady Grosville for its "cheerfulness," covered the floor, and there was a large white sheepskin rug before the fireplace. A few hyacinths in pots, and the bright fire supplied the only gay and living notes—before the ladies arrived.

Still, for an English eye, the room had a certain cold charm, was moreover full of history. It hardly deserved at any rate the shiver with which Kitty Bristol looked round it.

But she had little time to dwell upon the room and its meanings, for Lady Grosville approached her with a manner which still showed signs of the catastrophe before dinner.

"Kitty, I think you don't know Miss Lyster yet—Mary Lyster—she wants to be introduced to you."

Mary advanced smiling; Kitty held out a limp hand, and they exchanged a few words standing in the centre of the floor, while the other guests found seats.

"What a charming contrast!" said Lady Edith Manley in Lady Grosville's ear. She nodded smiling towards the standing pair—struck by the fine straight lines of Mary's satin dress, the roundness of her fine figure, the oval of her head and face, and then by the little, vibrating, tempestuous creature beside her, so distinguished, in spite of the billowing flounces and ribbons, so direct and significant, amid all the elaboration.

"Kitty is ridiculously overdressed," said Lady Grosville. "I hope we shall soon change that. My girls are going to take her to their woman."

Lady Edith put up her eye-glass slowly and looked at the two Grosville girls; then back at Kitty.

Meanwhile a few perfunctory questions and answers were passing between Miss Lyster and her companion. Mary's aspect as she talked was extremely amiable; one might have called it indulgent, perhaps even by an adjective that implied a yet further shade of delicate superiority. Kitty met it by the same "grand manner" that Ashe had several times observed in her, a manner caught perhaps from some French model, and caricatured in the taking. Her eyes meanwhile took note of Mary's face and dress, and while she listened her small teeth tormented her under-lip, as though she restrained impatience. All at once in the midst of some information that Miss Lyster was lucidly giving, Kitty made an impetuous turn. She had caught some words on the farther side of the room; and she looked hard, eagerly, at the speaker.

"Who is that?" she inquired.

Mary Lyster, with a sharp sense of interruption, replied that she believed the lady in question was the Grosville's French governess. But in the very midst of her sentence Kitty deserted her, left her standing in the centre of the drawing-room, while the deserter fled across it, and sinking down beside the astonished mademoiselle took the Frenchwoman's hand by assault and held it in both her own.

"Vous parlez Français?—vous êtes Française? Ah! ça me fait tant de bien! Voyons! voyons!—causons un peu!"

And bending forward, she broke into a cataract of French, all the elements of her strange, small beauty rushing, as it were, into flame and movement at the swift sound and cadence of the words, like a dancer kindled by music. The occasion was of the slightest; the Frenchwoman might well show a natural bewilderment. But into the slight occasion the girl threw an animation, a passion, that glorified it. It was like the leap of a wild rain-stream on the mountains, that pours into the first channel which presents itself.

"What beautiful French!" said Lady Edith, softly, to Mary Lyster, who had found a seat beside her.

Mary Lyster smiled.

"She has been at school, of course, in a French convent." Somehow the tone implied that the explanation disposed of all merit in the performance.

"I am afraid these French convent schools are not at all what they should be," said Lady Grosville.

And rising to a pyramidal height, her ample moiré dress swelling behind her, her gray head magnificently crowned by its lace cap and black velvet bandeau, she swept across the room to where the Dean's wife, Mrs. Winston, sat in fascinated silence observing Lady Kitty. The silence and the attention annoyed her hostess. The first thing to be done with girls of this type, it seemed to Lady Grosville, was to prove to them that they would not be allowed to monopolize society.

There are natural monopolies, however, and they are not easy to deal with.

As soon as the gentlemen returned, Mr. Rankine, whom she had treated so badly at dinner, the young agent of the estate, the clergyman of the parish, the Austrian attaché, the cabinet minister, and the Dean, all showed a strong inclination to that side of the room which seemed to be held in force by Lady Kitty. The Dean especially was not to be gainsaid. He placed himself in the seat shyly vacated by the French governess, and crossed his thin, stockinged legs with the air of one who means to take his ease. There was even a certain curious resemblance between him and Kitty, as was noticed from a distance by Ashe. The Dean, who was very much a man of the world, and came of an historic family, was, in his masculine degree, planned on the same miniature scale and with the same fine finish as the girl of eighteen. And he carried his knee-breeches, his apron, and his exquisite white head with a natural charm and energy akin to hers—mellowed though it were by time, and dignified by office. He began eagerly to talk to her of Paris. His father had been ambassador for a time under Louis Philippe, and he had boyish memories of the great house in the Faubourg St. Honoré, and of the Orleanist ministers and men of letters. And lo! Kitty met him at once, in a glow and sparkle that enchanted the old man. Moreover, it appeared that this much-beflounced young lady could talk; that she had heard of the famous names and the great affairs to which the Dean made allusion; that she possessed indeed a native and surprising interest in matter of the sort; and a manner, above all, with the old, alternately soft and daring, calculated, as Lady Grosville would no doubt have put it, merely to make fools of them.

In her cousins' house, it seemed, she had talked with old people, survivors of the Orleanist and Bourbon régimes—even of the Empire; had sat at their feet, a small, excited hero-worshipper; and had then rushed blindly into the memoirs and books that concerned them. So, in this French world the child had found time for other things than hunting, and the flattery of her cousin Henri? Ashe was supposed to be devoting himself to the Dean's wife; but both he and she listened most of the time to the sallies and the laughter of the circle where Kitty presided.

"My dear young lady," cried the delighted Dean, "I never find anybody who can talk of these things—it is really astonishing. Ah, now, we English know nothing of France—nor they of us. Why, I was a mere school-boy then, and I had a passion for their society, and their books—for their plays—dare I confess it?"—he lowered his voice and glanced at his hostess—"their plays, above all!"

Kitty clapped her hands. The Dean looked at her, and ran on:

"My mother shared it. When I came over for my Eton holidays, she and I lived at the Théâtre-Français. Ah, those were days! I remember Mademoiselle Mars in 'Hernani.'"

Kitty bounded in her seat. Whereupon it appeared that just before she left Paris she had been taken by a friend to see the reigning idol of the Comédie-Française, the young and astonishing actress, Sarah Bernhardt, as Doña Sol. And there began straightway an excited duet between her and the Dean; a comparison of old and new, a rivalry of heroines, a hot and critical debate that presently silenced all other conversation in the room, and brought Lord Grosville to stand gaping and astounded behind the Dean, reflecting no doubt that this was not precisely the Dean of the Diocesan Conference.

The old man indeed forgot his age, the girl her youth; they met as equals, on poetic ground, till suddenly Kitty, springing up, and to prove her point, began an imitation of Sarah in the great love-scene of the last act, before arresting fate, in the person of Don Ruy, breaks in upon the rapture of the lovers. She absolutely forgot the Grosville drawing-room, the staring Grosville girls, the other faces, astonished or severe, neutral or friendly. Out rolled the tide of tragic verse, fine poetry, and high passion; and though it be not very much to say, it must at least be said that never had such recitation, in such French, been heard before within the walls of Grosville Park. Nor had the lips of any English girl ever dealt there with a poetic diction so unchastened and unashamed. Lady Grosville might well feel as though the solid frame of things were melting and cracking round her.

Kitty ceased. She fell back upon her chair, smitten with a sudden perception.

"You made me!" she said, reproachfully, to the Dean.

The Dean said another "Brava!" and gave another clap. Then, becoming aware of Lord Grosville's open mouth and eye, he sat up, caught his wife's expression, and came back to prose and the present.

"My dear young lady," he began, "you have the most extraordinary talent—" when Lady Grosville advanced upon him. Standing before him, she majestically signalled to her husband across his small person.

"William, kindly order Mrs. Wilson's carriage."

Lord Grosville awoke from his stupor with a jerk, and did as he was told. Mrs. Wilson, the agent's timid wife, who was not at all aware that she had asked for her carriage, rose obediently. Then the mistress of the house turned to Lady Kitty.

"You recite very well, Kitty," she said, with cold and stately emphasis, "but another time I will ask you to confine yourself to Racine and Corneille. In England we have to be very careful about French writers. There are, however, if I remember right, some fine passages in 'Athalie.'"

Kitty said nothing. The Austrian attaché who had been following the little incident with the liveliest interest, retired to a close inspection of the china. But the Dean, whose temper was of the quick and chivalrous kind, was roused.

"She recites wonderfully! And Victor Hugo is a classic, please, my lady—just as much as the rest of them. Ah, well, no doubt, no doubt, there might be things more suitable." And the old man came wavering down to earth, as the enthusiasm which Kitty had breathed into him escaped, like the gas from a balloon. "But, do you know, Lady Kitty "—he struck into a new subject with eagerness, partly to cover the girl, partly to silence Lady Grosville—"you reminded me all the time so remarkably—in your voice—certain inflections—of your sister—your step-sister, isn't it?—Lady Alice? You know, of course, she is close to you to-day—just the other side the park—with the Sowerbys?"

The Dean's wife sprang to her feet in despair. In general it was to her a matter for fond complacency that her husband had no memory for gossip, and was in such matters as innocent and as dangerous as a child. But this was too much. At the same moment Ashe came quickly forward.

"My sister?" said Kitty. "My sister?"

She spoke low and uncertainly, her eyes fixed upon the Dean.

He looked at her with a sudden odd sense of something unusual, then went on, still floundering:

"We met her at St. Pancras on our way down. If I had only known we were to have had the pleasure of meeting you—Do you know, I think she is looking decidedly better?"

His kindly expression as he rose expected a word of sisterly assent. Meanwhile even Lady Grosville was paralyzed, and the words with which she had meant to interpose failed on her lips.

Kitty, too, rose, looking round for something, which she seemed to find in the face of William Ashe, for her eyes clung there.

"My sister," she repeated, in the same low, strained voice. "My sister Alice? I—I don't know. I have never seen her."

Ashe could not remember afterwards precisely how the incident closed. There was a bustle of departing guests, and from the midst of it Lady Kitty slipped away. But as he came down-stairs in smoking trim, ten minutes later, he overheard the injured Dean wrestling with his wife, as she lit a candle for him on the landing.

"My dear, what did you look at me like that for? What did the child mean? And what on earth is the matter?"