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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.
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.
"Don't put too much responsibility on me. I know nothing about young ladies." "I don't know that I do much," said Lady Grosville, candidly. "My own daughters are so exceptional." Ashe held his peace. Distant cousins as they were, he hardly knew the Grosville girls apart, and had never yet grasped any reason why he should.
I suppose she thought that for her boy's sake she'd better keep a bad business to herself as much as possible " "Wensleydale Wensleydale?" said Ashe, who had been smoking hard and silently beside his host. "You mean the man who distinguished himself in the Crimea? He died last year at Naples, wasn't it?" Lord Grosville assented.
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.
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.
The incident, or rather the heroine of the evening, had given Lord Grosville a topic which in the case of William Ashe he saw no reason for avoiding; and in the peace of the smoking-room, when he was no longer either hungry for his dinner or worried by his responsibilities as host, he fell upon his wife's family, and, as though he had been the manager of a puppet-show, unpacked the whole box of them for Ashe's entertainment.
Then it struck him as odd that he should have fallen so quickly into this position of Kitty's defender with her father's family; and he drew in his horns. He resumed his work, and Lady Grosville sat for a while, her hands in her lap, quietly observing him. At last she said: "So you think, William, I had better leave Kitty alone?" "About what?" Ashe raised his curly head with a laugh.
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.
"Ask Lady Grosville to bring you." "May I? But " She searched his face, eager still to pour out the impulsive, uncontrolled confidences that were in her mind. But his expression stopped her, and she gave a little, resentful sigh. "Yes I'll come. We you and I are a little bit cousins too aren't we? We talked about you at the Grosvilles." "Was our 'great-great' the same person?" he said, laughing.
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