Читать книгу The Marriage of William Ashe - Mrs. Humphry Ward - Страница 13

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When Ashe returned to the drawing-room he found it filled with the sound of talk and laughter. But it was a talk and laughter in which the Grosville family seemed to have itself but little part. Lady Grosville sat stiffly on an early Victorian sofa, her spectacles on her nose, reading the Times of the preceding day, or appearing to read it. Amy Grosville, the eldest girl, was busy in a corner, putting the finishing touches to a piece of illumination; while Caroline, seated on the floor, was showing the small child of a neighbor how to put a picture-puzzle together. Lord Grosville was professedly in a farther room, talking with the Austrian count; but every other minute he strolled restlessly into the big drawing-room, and stood at the edge of the talk and laughter, only to turn on his heel again and go back to the count—who meanwhile appeared in the opening between the two rooms, his hands on his hips, eagerly watching Kitty Bristol and her companions, while waiting, as courtesy bade him, for the return of his host.

Ashe at once divined that the Grosville family were in revolt. Nor had he to look far to discover the cause.

Was that astonishing young lady in truth identical with the pensive figure of the morning? Kitty had doffed her black, and she wore a "demi-toilette" gown of the utmost elegance, of which the expensiveness had, no doubt, already sunk deep into Lady Grosville's soul. At Grosville Park the new fashion of "tea-gowns" was not favorably regarded. It was thought to be a mere device of silly and extravagant women, and an "afternoon dress," though of greater pretensions than a morning gown, was still a sober affair, not in any way to be confounded with those decorative effects that nature and sound sense reserved for the evening.

But Kitty's dress was of some white silky material; and it displayed her slender throat and some portion of her thin white arms. The Dean's wife, Mrs. Winston, as she secretly studied it, felt an inward satisfaction; for here at last was one of those gowns she had once or twice gazed on with a covetous awe in the shop-windows of the Rue de la Paix, brought down to earth, and clothing a simple mortal. They were then real, and they could be worn by real women; which till now the Dean's wife had scarcely believed.

Alack! how becoming were these concoctions to minxes with fair hair and sylphlike frames! Kitty was radiant, triumphant; and Ashe was certain that Lady Grosville knew it, however she might barricade herself behind the Times. The girl's slim fingers gesticulated in aid of her tongue; one tiny foot swung lightly over the other; the glistening folds of the silk wrapped her in a shimmering whiteness, above which the fair head—negligently thrown back—shone out on a red background, made by the velvet chair in which she sat.

The Dean was placed close beside her, and was clearly enjoying himself enormously. And in front of her, absorbed in her, engaged, indeed, in hot and furious debate with her, stood the great man who had just arrived.

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

Geoffrey Cliffe turned sharply, and a perfunctory greeting passed between the two men.

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

"Last Tuesday. But that don't matter," said Cliffe, impatiently—"nothing matters—except that I must somehow defeat Lady Kitty!"

And he stood, looking down upon the girl in front of him, his hands on his sides, his queer countenance twitching with suppressed laughter. An odd figure, tall, spare, loosely jointed, surmounted by a pale parchment face, which showed a somewhat protruding chin, a long and delicate nose, and fine brows under a strange overhanging mass of fair hair. He had the dissipated, battered look of certain Vandyck cavaliers, and certainly no handsomeness of any accepted kind. But as Ashe well knew, the aspect and personality of Geoffrey Cliffe possessed for innumerable men and women, in English "society" and out of it, a fascination it was easier to laugh at than to explain.

Lady Kitty had eyes certainly for no one else. When he spoke of "defeating" her, she laughed her defiance, and a glance of battle passed between her and Cliffe. Cliffe, still holding her with his look, considered what new ground to break.

"What is the subject?" said Ashe.

"That men are vainer than women," said Kitty. "It's so true, it's hardly worth saying—isn't it? Mr. Cliffe talks nonsense about our love of clothes—and of being admired. As if that were vanity! Of course it's only our sense of duty."

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

"To the men, of course! If we didn't like clothes, if we didn't like being admired—where would you be?"

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

"As if we should ever get you there if it didn't amuse you!" said Kitty. "Hypocrites! If we don't dress, paint, chatter, and tell lies for you, you won't look at us—and if we do—"

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

Kitty laughed.

"That's judging by results. I look to the motive. I repeat, if I powder and paint, it's not because I'm vain, but because it's my painful duty to give you pleasure."

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

She shrugged her shoulders.

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

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

"Yes—" sighed Kitty. "Worse luck!"

And she sank softly back in her chair, her eyes shining under the stimulus of the laugh that ran through her circle. The Dean joined in it uneasily, conscious, no doubt, of the sharp, crackling movements by which in the distance Lady Grosville was dumbly expressing herself—through the Times. Cliffe looked at the small figure a moment, then seized a chair and sat down in front of her, astride.

"I wonder why you want to please us?" he said, abruptly, his magnificent blue eyes upon her.

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

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

"Or comedy," said the Dean, rising. "I take you at your word, Lady Kitty. To-night it will be your duty to please me. Remember, you promised to say us some more French." He lifted an admonitory finger.

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

The Dean smiled to himself as he crossed the room to Lady Grosville, and endeavored by an impartial criticism of the new curate's manner and voice, as they had revealed themselves in church that morning, to distract her attention from her niece.

A hopeless task—for Kitty's personality was of the kind which absorbs, engulfs attention, do what the by-stander will. Eyes and ears were drawn perforce into the little whirlpool that she made, their owners yielding them, now with delight, now with repulsion.

Mary Lyster, for instance, came in presently, fresh from a walk with Lady Edith Manley. She, too, had changed her dress. But it was a discreet and reasonable change, and Lady Grosville looked at her soft gray gown with its muslin collar and cuffs—delicately embroidered, yet of a nunlike cut and air notwithstanding—with a hot energy of approval, provoked entirely by Kitty's audacities. Mary meanwhile raised her eyebrows gently at the sight of Kitty. She swept past the group, giving a cool greeting to Geoffrey Cliffe, and presently settled herself in the farther room, attended by Louis Harman and Darrell, who had just arrived by the afternoon train. Clearly she observed Kitty and observed her with dislike. The attitude of her companions was not so simple.

"What an amazing young woman!" said Harman, presently, under his breath, yet open-mouthed. "I suppose she and Cliffe are old friends."

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

Darrell laughed.

"Lady Kitty makes short work of the preliminaries," he said; "she told me the other night life wasn't long enough to begin with talk about the weather."

"The weather?" said Harman. "At the present moment she and Cliffe seem to be discussing the 'Dame aux Camélias.' Since when do they take young girls to see that kind of thing in Paris?"

Miss Lyster gave a little cough, and bending forward said to Harman: "Lady Tranmore has shown me your picture. It is a dear, delicious thing! I never saw anything more heavenly than the angel."

Harman smiled a flattered smile. Mary Lyster referred to a copy of a "Filippo Lippi Annunciation" which he had just executed in water-color for Lady Tranmore, to whom he was devoted. He was, however, devoted to a good many peeresses, with whom he took tea, and for whom he undertook many harmless and elegant services. He painted their portraits, in small size, after pre-Raphaelite models, and he occasionally presented them with copies—a little weak, but charming—of their favorite Italian pictures. He and Mary began now to talk of Florence with much enthusiasm and many caressing adjectives. For Harman most things were "sweet"; for Mary, "interesting" or "suggestive." She talked fast and fluently; a subtle observer might have guessed she wished it to be seen that for her Lady Kitty Bristol's flirtations, be they in or out of taste, were simply non-existent.

Darrell listened intermittently, watched Cliffe and Lady Kitty, and thought a good deal. That extraordinary girl was certainly "carrying on" with Cliffe, as she had "carried on" with Ashe on the night of her first acquaintance with him in St. James's Place. Ashe apparently took it with equanimity, for he was still sitting beside the pair, twisting a paper-knife and smiling, sometimes putting in a word, but more often silent, and apparently of no account at all to either Kitty or Cliffe.

Darrell knew that the new minister disliked and despised Geoffrey Cliffe; he was aware, too, that Cliffe returned these sentiments, and was not unlikely to be found attacking Ashe in public before long on certain points of foreign policy, where Cliffe conceived himself to be a master. The meeting of the two men under the Grosvilles' roof struck Darrell as curious. Why had Cliffe been invited by these very respectable and straitlaced people the Grosvilles? Darrell could only reflect that Lady Eleanor Cliffe, the traveller's mother, was probably connected with them by some of those innumerable and ever-ramifying links that hold together a certain large group of English families; and that, moreover, Lady Grosville, in spite of philanthropy and Evangelicalism, had always shown a rather pronounced taste in "lions"—of the masculine sort. Of the women to be met with at Grosville Park, one could be certain. Lady Grosville made no excuses for her own sex. But she was a sufficiently ambitious hostess to know that agreeable parties are not constructed out of the saints alone. The men, therefore, must provide the sinners; and of some of the persons then most in vogue she was careful not to know too much. For, socially, one must live; and that being so, the strictness of to-day may have at any moment to be purchased by the laxity of to-morrow. Such, at any rate, was Darrell's analysis of the situation.

He was still astonished, however, when all was said. For Cliffe during the preceding winter, on his return from some remarkable travels in Persia, had paused on the Riviera, and an affair at Cannes with a French vicomtesse had got into the English papers. No one knew the exact truth of it; and a small volume of verse by Cliffe, published immediately afterwards—verse very distinguished, passionate, and obscure—had offered many clews, but no solution whatever. Nobody supposed, however, that the story was anything but a bad one. Moreover, the last book of travels—which had had an enormous success—contained one of the most malicious attacks on foreign missions that Darrell remembered. And if the missionaries had a supporter in England, it was Lady Grosville. Had she designs—material designs—on behalf of Miss Amy or Miss Caroline? Darrell smiled at the notion. Cliffe must certainly marry money, and was not to be captured by any Miss Amys—or Lady Kittys either, for the matter of that.

But?—Darrell glanced at the lady beside him, and his busy thoughts took a new turn. He had seen the greeting between Miss Lyster and Cliffe. It was cold; but all the same the world knew that they had once been friends. Was it some five years before that Miss Lyster, then in the height of a brilliant season under the wing of Lady Tranmore, had been much seen in public with Geoffrey Cliffe? Then he had departed eastward, to explore the upper waters of the Mékong, and the gossip excited had died away. Of late her name had been rather coupled with that of William Ashe.

Well, so far as the world was concerned, she might mate with either—with the mad notoriety of Cliffe or the young distinction of Ashe. Darrell's bitter heart contracted as he reflected that only for him and the likes of him, men of the people, with average ability, and a scarcely average income, were maidens of Mary Lyster's dower and pedigree out of reach. Meanwhile he revenged himself by being her very good friend, and allowing himself at times much caustic plainness of speech in his talks with her.

"What are you three gossiping about?" said Ashe, strolling in presently from the other room to join them.

"As usual," said Darrell. "I am listening to perfection. Miss Lyster and Harman are discussing pictures."

Ashe stifled a little yawn. He threw himself down by Mary, vowing that there was no more pleasure to be got out of pictures now that people would try to know so much about them. Mary meanwhile raised herself involuntarily to look into the farther room, where the noise made by Cliffe and Lady Kitty had increased.

"They are going to sing," said Ashe, lazily—"and it won't be hymns."

In fact, Lady Kitty had opened the piano, and had begun the first bars of something French and operatic. At the first sound of Kitty's music, however, Lady Grosville drew herself up; she closed the volume of Evangelical sermons for which she had exchanged the Times; she deposited her spectacles sharply on the table beside her.

"Amy!—Caroline!"

Those young ladies rose. So did Lady Grosville. Kitty meanwhile sat with suspended fingers and laughing eyes, waiting on her aunt's movements.

"Kitty, pray don't let me interfere with your playing," said Lady Grosville, with severe politeness—"but perhaps you would kindly put it off for half an hour. I am now going to read to the servants—"

"Gracious!" said Kitty, springing up. "I was going to play Mr. Cliffe some Offenbach."

"Ah, but the piano can be heard in the library, and your cousin Amy plays the harmonium—"

"Mon Dieu!" said Kitty. "We will be as quiet as mice. Or"—she made a quick step in pursuit of her aunt—"shall I come and sing, Aunt Lina?"

Ashe, in his shelter behind Mary Lyster, fell into a silent convulsion of laughter.

"No, thank you!" said Lady Grosville, hastily. And she rustled away followed by her daughters.

Kitty came flying into the inner room followed by Cliffe.

"What have I done?" she said, breathlessly, addressing Harman, who rose to greet her. "Mayn't one play the piano here on Sundays?"

"That depends," said Harman, "on what you play."

"Who made your English Sunday?" said Kitty, impetuously. "Je vous demande—who?"

She threw her challenge to all the winds of heaven—standing tiptoe, her hands poised on the back of a chair, the smallest and most delicate of furies.

"A breath unmakes it, as a breath has made," said Cliffe. "Come and play billiards, Lady Kitty. You said just now you played."

"Billiards!" said Harman, throwing up his hands. "On Sunday—here?"

"Can they hear the balls?" said Kitty, eagerly, with a gesture towards the library.

Mary Lyster, who had been perfunctorily looking at a book, laid it down.

"It would certainly greatly distress Lady Grosville," she said, in a voice studiously soft, but on that account perhaps all the more significant.

Kitty glanced at Mary, and Ashe saw the sudden red in her cheek. She turned provokingly to Cliffe. "There's quite half an hour, isn't there, before one need dress—"

"More," said Cliffe. "Come along."

And he made for the door, which he held open for her. It was now Mary Lyster's turn to flush—the rebuff had been so naked and unadorned. Ashe rose as Kitty passed him.

"Why don't you come, too?" she said, pausing. There was a flash from eyes deep and dark beneath a pair of wilful brows. "Aunt Lina would never be cross with you!"

"Thank you! I should be delighted to play buffer, but unfortunately I have some work I must do before dinner."

"Must you?" She looked at him uncertainly, then at Cliffe. In the dusk of the large, heavily furnished room, the pale yet brilliant gold of her hair, her white dress, her slim energy and elegance drew all their eyes—even Mary Lyster's.

"I must," Ashe repeated, smiling. "I am glad your headache is so much better."

"It is not in the least better!"

"Then you disguise it like a heroine."

He stood beside her, looking down upon her, his height and strength measured against her smallness. Apparently his amused detachment, the slight dryness of his tone annoyed her. She made a tart reply and vanished through the door that Cliffe held open for her.

Ashe retired to his own room, dealt with some Foreign Office work, and then allowed himself a meditative smoke. The click of the billiard-balls had ceased abruptly about ten minutes after he had begun upon his papers; there had been voices in the hall, Lord Grosville's he thought among them; and now all was silence.

He thought of the events of the afternoon with mingled amusement and annoyance. Cliffe was an unscrupulous fellow, and the child's head might be turned. She should be protected from him in future—he vowed she should. Lady Tranmore should take it in hand. She had been a match for Cliffe in various other directions before this.

What brought the man, with his notorious character and antecedents, to Grosville Park—one of the dwindling number of country-houses in England where the old Puritan restrictions still held? It was said he was on the look-out for a post—Ashe, indeed, happened to know it officially; and Lord Grosville had a good deal of influence. Moreover, failing an appointment, he was understood to be aiming at Parliament and office; and there were two safe county-seats within the Grosville sphere.

"Yet even when he wants a thing he can't behave himself in order to get it," thought Ashe. "Anybody else would have turned Sabbatarian for once, and refrained from flirting with the Grosvilles' niece. But that's Cliffe all over—and perhaps the best thing about him."

He might have added that as Cliffe was supposed to desire an appointment under either the Foreign Office or the Colonial Office, it might have been thought to his interest to show himself more urbane than he had in fact shown himself that afternoon to the new Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. But Ashe rarely or never indulged himself in reflections of that kind. Besides, he and Cliffe knew each other too well for posing. There was a time when they had been on very friendly terms, and when Cliffe had been constantly in his mother's drawing-room. Lady Tranmore had a weakness for "influencing" young men of family and ability; and Cliffe, in fact, owed her a good deal. Then she had seen cause to think ill of him; and, moreover, his travels had taken him to the other side of the world. Ashe was now well aware that Cliffe reckoned on him as a hostile influence and would not try either to deceive or to propitiate him.

He thought Cliffe had been disagreeably surprised to see him that afternoon. Perhaps it was the sudden sense of antagonism acting on the man's excitable nature that had made him fling himself into the wild nonsense he had talked with Lady Kitty.

And thenceforward Ashe's thoughts were possessed by Kitty only—Kitty in her two aspects, of the morning and the afternoon. He dressed in a reverie, and went down-stairs still dreaming.

At dinner he found himself responsible for Mary Lyster. Kitty was on the other side of the table, widely separated both from himself and Cliffe. She was in a little Empire dress of blue and silver, as extravagantly simple as her gown of the afternoon had been extravagantly elaborate.

Ashe observed the furtive study that the Grosville girls could not help bestowing upon her—upon her shoulder-straps and long, bare arms, upon her high waist and the blue and silver bands in her hair. Kitty herself sat in a pensive or proud silence. The Dean was beside her, but she scarcely spoke to him, and as to the young man from the neighborhood who had taken her in, he was to her as though he were not.

"Has there been a row?" Ashe inquired, in a low voice, of his companion.

Mary looked at him quietly.

"Lord Grosville asked them not to play—because of the servants."

"Good!" said Ashe. "The servants were, of course, playing cards in the house-keeper's room."

"Not at all. They were singing hymns with Lady Grosville."

Ashe looked incredulous.

"Only the slaveys and scullery maids that couldn't help themselves. Never mind. Was Lady Kitty amenable?"

"She seems to have made Lord Grosville very angry. Lady Grosville and I smoothed him down."

"Did you?" said Ashe. "That was nice of you."

Mary colored a little, and did not reply. Presently Ashe resumed.

"Aren't you as sorry for her as I am?"

"For Lady Kitty? I should think she managed to amuse herself pretty well."

"She seems to me the most deplorable tragic little person," said Ashe, slowly.

Miss Lyster laughed.

"I really don't see it," she said.

"Oh yes, you do," he persisted—"if you think a moment. Be kind to her—won't you?"

She drew herself up with a cold dignity.

"I confess that she has never attracted me in the least."

Ashe returned to his dinner, dimly conscious that he had spoken like a fool.

When the ladies had withdrawn, the conversation fell on some important news from the Far East contained in the Sunday papers that Geoffrey Cliffe had brought down, and presumed to form part of the despatches which the two ministers staying in the house had received that afternoon by Foreign Office messenger. The government of Teheran was in one of its periodical fits of ill-temper with England; had been meddling with Afghanistan, flirting badly with Russia, and bringing ridiculous charges against the British minister. An expedition to Bushire was talked of, and the Radical press was on the war-path. The cabinet minister said little. A Lord Privy Seal, reverentially credited with advising royalty in its private affairs, need have no views on the Persian Gulf. But Ashe was appealed to and talked well. The minister at Teheran was an old friend of his, and he described the personal attacks made on him for political reasons by the Shah and his ministers with a humor which kept the table entertained.

Suddenly Cliffe interposed. He had been listening with restlessness, though Ashe, with pointed courtesy, had once or twice included him in the conversation. And presently, at a somewhat dramatic moment, he met a statement of Ashe's with a direct and violent contradiction. Ashe flushed, and a duel began between the two men of which the company were soon silent spectators. Ashe had the resources of official knowledge; Cliffe had been recently on the spot, and pushed home the advantage of the eye-witness with a covert insolence which Ashe bore with surprising carelessness and good-temper. In the end Cliffe said some outrageous things, at which Ashe laughed; and Lord Grosville abruptly dissolved the party.

Ashe went smiling out of the dining-room, caressing a fine white spaniel, as though nothing had happened. In crossing the hall Harman found himself alone with the Dean, who looked serious and preoccupied.

"That was a curious spectacle," said Harman. "Ashe's equanimity was amazing."

"I had rather have seen him angrier," said the Dean, slowly.

"He was always a very tolerant, easy-going fellow."

The Dean shook his head.

"A touch of soeva indignatio now and then would complete him."

"Has he got it in him?"

"Perhaps not," said the little Dean, with a flash of expression that dignified all his frail person. "But without it he will hardly make a great man."

Meanwhile Geoffrey Cliffe, his strange, twisted face still vindictively aglow, made his way to Kitty Bristol's corner in the drawing-room. Mary Lyster was conscious of it, conscious also of a certain look that Kitty bestowed upon the entrance of Ashe, while Cliffe was opening a battery of mingled chaff and compliments that did not at first have much effect upon her. But William Ashe threw himself into conversation with Lady Edith Manley, and was presently, to all appearance, happily plunged in gossip, his tall person wholly at ease in a deep arm-chair, while Lady Edith bent over him with smiles. Meanwhile there was a certain desertion of Kitty on the part of the ladies. Lady Grosville hardly spoke to her, and the girls markedly avoided her. There was a moment when Kitty, looking round her, suddenly shook her small shoulders, and like a colt escaping from harness gave herself to riot. She and Cliffe amused themselves so well and so noisily that the whole drawing-room was presently uneasily aware of them. Lady Grosville shot glances of wrath, rose suddenly at one moment and sat down again; her girls talked more disjointedly than ever to the gentlemen who were civilly attending them; while, on the other hand, Miss Lyster's flow of conversation with Louis Harman was more softly copious than usual. At last the Dean's wife looked at the Dean, a signal of kind distress, and the Dean advanced.

"Lady Kitty," he said, taking a seat beside the pair, "have you forgotten you promised me some French?"

Kitty turned on him a hot and mutinous face.

"Did I? What shall I say? Some Alfred de Musset?"

"No," said the Dean, "I think not."

"Some—some"—she cudgelled her memory—"some Théophile Gautier?"

"No, certainly not!" said the Dean, hastily.

"Well, as I don't know a word of him—" laughed Kitty.

"That was mischievous," said the Dean, raising a finger. "Let me suggest Lamartine."

Kitty shook her head obstinately. "I never learned one line."

"Then some of the old fellows," said the Dean, persuasively. "I long to hear you in Corneille or Racine. That we should all enjoy."

And suddenly his wrinkled hand fell kindly on the girl's small, chilly ringers and patted them. Their eyes met, Kitty's wild and challenging, the Dean's full of that ethereal benevolence which blended so agreeably with his character as courtier and man of the world. There was a bright sweetness in them which seemed to say: "Poor child! I understand. But be a little good—as well as clever—and all will be well."

Suddenly Kitty's look wavered and fell. All the harshness dissolved from her thin young beauty. She turned from Cliffe, and the Dean saw her quiver with submission.

"I think I could say some 'Polyeucte,'" she said, gently.

The Dean clapped his hands and rose.

"Lady Grosville," he said, raising his voice—"Ladies and gentlemen, Lady Kitty has promised to say us some more French poetry. You remember how admirably she recited last night. But this is Sunday, and she will give us something in a different vein."

Lady Grosville, who had risen impatiently, sat down again. There was a general movement; chairs were turned or drawn forward till a circle formed. Meanwhile the Dean consulted with Kitty and resumed:

"Lady Kitty will recite a scene from Corneille's beautiful tragedy of 'Polyeucte'—the scene in which Pauline, after witnessing the martyrdom of her husband, who has been beheaded for refusing to sacrifice to the gods, returns from the place of execution so melted by the love and sacrifice she has beheld that she opens her heart then and there to the same august faith and pleads for the same death."

The Dean seated himself, and Kitty stepped into the centre of the circle. She thought a moment, her lips moving, as though she recalled the lines. Then she looked down at her bare arms, and dress, frowned, and suddenly approached Lady Edith Manley.

"May I have that?" she said, pointing to a lace cloak that lay on Lady Edith's knee. "I am rather cold."

Lady Edith handed it to her, and she threw it round her.

"Actress!" said Cliffe, under his breath, with a grin of amusement.

At any rate, her impulse served her well. Her form and dress disappeared under a cloud of white. She became in a flash, so to speak, evangelized—a most innocent and spiritual apparition. Her beautiful head, her kindled and transfigured face, her little hand on the white folds, these alone remained to mingle their impression with the austere and moving tragedy which her lips recited. Her audience looked on at first with the embarrassed or hostile air which is the Englishman's natural protection against the great things of art; then for those who understood French the high passion and the noble verse began to tell; while those who could not follow were gradually enthralled by the gestures and tones with which the slight, vibrating creature, whom but ten minutes before most of them had regarded as a mere noisy flirt, suggested and conveyed the finest and most compelling shades of love, faith, and sacrifice.

When she ceased, there was a moment's profound silence. Then Lady Edith, drawing a long breath, expressed the welcome commonplace which restored the atmosphere of daily life.

"How could you remember it all?"

Kitty sat down, her lip trembling scornfully.

"I had to say it every week at the convent."

"I understand," said Cliffe in Darrell's ear—"that last night she was Doña Sol. An accommodating young woman."

Meanwhile Kitty looked up to find Ashe beside her. He said, "Magnificent!"—but it did not matter to her what he said. His face told her that she had moved him, and that he was incapable of any foolish chatter about it. A smile of extraordinary sweetness sprang into her eyes; and when Lady Grosville came up to thank her, the girl impetuously rose, and, in the foreign way, kissed her hand, courtesying. Lord Grosville said, heartily, "Upon my word, Kitty, you ought to go on the stage!" and she smiled upon him, too, in a flutter of feeling, forgetting his scolding and her own impertinence, before dinner. The revulsion, indeed, throughout the company—with two exceptions—was complete. For the rest of the evening Kitty basked in sunshine and flattery. She met it with a joyous gentleness, and the little figure, still bedraped in white, became the centre of the room's kindness.

The Dean was triumphant.

"My dear Miss Lyster," he said, presently, finding himself near that lady, "did you ever hear anything better done? A most remarkable talent!"

Mary smiled.

"I am wondering," she said, "what they teach you in French convents—and why! It is all so singular—isn't it?"

Late that night Ashe entered his room—before his usual time, however. He had tired even of Lord Grosville's chat, and had left the smoking-room still talking. Indeed, he wished to be alone, and there was that in his veins which told him that a new motive had taken possession of his life.

He sat beside the open window reviewing the scenes and feelings of the day—his interview with Kitty in the morning—the teasing coquette of the afternoon—the inspired poetic child of the evening. Rapidly, but none the less strongly and steadfastly, he made up his mind. He would ask Kitty Bristol to marry him, and he would ask her immediately.

Why? He scarcely knew her. His mother, his family would think it madness. No doubt it was madness. Yet, as far as he could explain his impulse himself, it depended on certain fundamental facts in his own nature—it was in keeping with his deepest character. He had an inbred love of the difficult, the unconventional in life, of all that piqued and stimulated his own superabundant consciousness of resource and power. And he had a tenderness of feeling, a gift of chivalrous pity, only known to the few, which was in truth always hungrily on the watch, like some starved faculty that cannot find its outlet. The thought of this beautiful child, in the hands of such a mother as Madame d'Estrées, and rushing upon risks illustrated by the half-mocking attentions of Geoffrey Cliffe, did in truth wring his heart. With a strange imaginative clearness he foresaw her future, he beheld her the prey at once of some bad fellow and of her own temperament. She would come to grief; he saw the prescience of it in her already; and what a waste would be there!

No!—he would step in—capture her before these ways and whims, now merely bizarre or foolish, stiffened into what might in truth destroy her. His pulse quickened as he thought of the development of this beauty, the ripening of this intelligence. Never yet had he seen a girl whom he much wished to marry. He was easily repelled by stupidity, still more by mere amiability. Some touch of acid, of roughness in the fruit—that drew him, in politics, thought, love. And if she married him he vowed to himself, proudly, that she would find him no tyrant. Many a man might marry her who would then fight her and try to break her. All that was most fastidious and characteristic in Ashe revolted from such a notion. With him she should have freedom—whatever it might cost. He asked himself deliberately, whether after marriage he could see her flirting with other men, as she had flirted that day with Cliffe, and still refrain from coercing her. And his question was answered, or rather put aside, first by the confidence of nascent love—he would love her so well and so loyally that she would naturally turn to him for counsel; and then by the clear perception that she was a creature of mind rather than sense, governed mainly by the caprices and curiosities of the intelligence, combined with a rather cold, indifferent temperament. One moment throwing herself wildly into a dangerous or exciting intimacy, the next, parting with a laugh, and without a regret—it was thus he saw her in the future, even as a wife. "She may scandalize half the world," he said to himself, stubbornly—"I shall understand her!"

But his mother?—his friends?—his colleagues? He knew well his mother's ambitions for him, and the place that he held in her heart. Could he without cruelty impose upon her such a daughter as Kitty Bristol? Well!—his mother had a very large experience of life, and much natural independence of mind. He trusted her to see the promise in this untamed and gifted creature; he counted on the sense of power that Lady Tranmore possessed, and which would but find new scope in the taming of Kitty.

But Kitty's mother? Kitty must, of course, be rescued from Madame d'Estrées—must find a new and truer mother in Lady Tranmore. But money would do it; and money must be lavished.

Then, almost for the first time, Ashe felt a conscious delight in wealth and birth. Panache? He could give it her—the little, wild, lovely thing! Luxury, society, adoration—all should be hers. She should be so loved and cherished, she must needs love in turn.

His dreams were delicious; and the sudden fear into which he fell at the end lest after all Kitty should mock and turn from him, was only in truth another pleasure. No delay! Circumstances might develop at any moment and sweep her from him. Now or never must he snatch her from difficulty and disgrace—let hostile tongues wag as they pleased—and make her his.

His political future? He knew well the influence which, in these days of universal publicity, a man's private affairs may have on his public career. And in truth his heart was in that career, and the thought of endangering it hurt him. Certainly it would recommend him to nobody that he should marry Madame d'Estrées' daughter. On the other hand, what favor did he want of anybody? save what work and "knowing more than the other fellows" might compel? The cynic in him was well aware that he had already what other men fought for—family, money, and position. Society must accept his wife; and Kitty, once mellowed by happiness and praise, might live, laugh, and rattle as she pleased.

As to strangeness and caprice, the modern world delights in them; "the violent take it by force." There is, indeed, a dividing-line; but it was a love-marriage that should keep Kitty on the safe side of it.

He stood lost in a very ecstasy of resolve, when suddenly there was a sharp movement outside, and a flash of white among the yew hedges bordering the formal garden on which his windows looked. The night outside was still and veiled, but of the flash of white he was certain—and of a step on the gravel.

Something fell beside him, thrown from outside. He picked it up, and found a flower weighted by a stone, tied into a fold of ribbon.

"Madcap!" he said to himself, his heart beating to suffocation.

Then he stole out of his room, and down a small, winding staircase which led directly to the garden and a door beside the orangery. He had to unbolt the door, and as he did so a dog in one of the basement rooms began to bark. But there could be no flinching, though the whole thing was of an imprudence which pricked his conscience. To slip along the shadowed side of the orangery, to cross the space of clouded light beyond, and gain the darkness of the ilex avenue beyond was soon done. Then he heard a soft laugh, and a little figure fled before him. He followed and overtook.

Kitty Bristol turned upon him.

"Didn't I throw straight?" she said, triumphantly. "And they say girls can't throw."

"But why did you throw at all?" he said, capturing her hand.

"Because I wanted to talk to you. And I was restless and couldn't sleep. Why did you never come and talk to me this afternoon? And why"—she beat her foot angrily—"did you let me go and play billiards alone with Mr. Cliffe?"

"Let you!" cried Ashe. "As if anybody could have prevented you!"

"One sees, of course, that you detest Mr. Cliffe," said the whiteness beside him.

"I didn't come here to talk about Geoffrey Cliffe. I won't talk about him! Though, of course, you must know—"

"That I flirted with him abominably all the afternoon? C'est vrai—c'est ab-sol-ument vrai! And I shall always want to flirt with him, wherever I am—and whatever I may be doing."

"Do as you please," said Ashe, dryly, "but I think you will get tired."

"No, no—he excites me! He is bad, false, selfish, but he excites me. He talks to very few women—one can see that. And all the women want to talk to him. He used to admire Miss Lyster, and now he dislikes her. But she doesn't dislike him. No! she would marry him to-morrow if he asked her."

"You are very positive," said Ashe. "Allow me to say that I entirely disagree with you."

"You don't know anything about her," said the teasing voice.

"She is my cousin, mademoiselle."

"What does that matter? I know much more than you do, though I have only seen her two days. I know that—well, I am afraid of her!"

"Afraid of her? Did you come out—may I ask—determined to talk nonsense?"

"I came out—never mind! I am afraid of her. She hates me. I think"—he felt a shiver in the air—will do me harm if she can."

"No one shall do you harm," said Ashe, his tone changing, "if you will only trust yourself—"

She laughed merrily.

"To you? Oh! you'd soon throw it up."

"Try me!" he said, approaching her. "Lady Kitty, I have something to say to you."

Suddenly she shrank away from him. He could not see her face, and had nothing to guide him.

"I haven't yet known you three weeks," he said, over-mastered by something passionate and profound. "I don't know what you will say—whether you can put up with me. But I know my own mind—I shall not change. I—I love you. I ask you to marry me."

A silence. The night seemed to have grown darker. Then a small hand seized his, and two soft lips pressed themselves upon it. He tried to capture her, but she evaded him.

"You—you really and actually—want to marry me?"

"I do, Kitty, with all my heart."

"You remember about my mother—about Alice?"

"I remember everything. We would face it together."

"And—you know what I told you about my bad temper?"

"Some nonsense, wasn't it? But I should be bored by the domestic dove. I want the hawk, Kitty, with its quick wings and its daring bright eyes."

She broke from him with a cry.

"You must listen. I have—a wicked, odious, ungovernable temper. I should make you miserable."