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Updated: June 8, 2025
Why had Cliffe been invited by these very respectable and straitlaced people the Grosvilles?
For that gentleman had not succeeded in the designs which were occupying his mind when he had first made Kitty's acquaintance in the Grosvilles' country-house. He had desired an appointment in Egypt; but it had not been given him, and after some angry restlessness at home, he had once more taken up a pilgrim's staff and departed on fresh travels, bound this time for the Pamirs and Thibet.
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.
She had reappeared on the Monday, pale and furious, saying that she and her aunt had quarrelled, and that she would never go near the Grosvilles either in town or country again. She had not volunteered any further explanation, and Ashe had refrained from inquiry.
And then the library door closed behind her. "Kindness" was indeed, that afternoon, the order of the day, as from the Grosvilles to Lady Kitty. Ashe wondered how she liked it. The girls followed her about with shawls. Lady Grosville installed her on a sofa in the back drawing-room.
"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.
"I never really understood what it all meant till the other night when old Lady Grosville took and told me more at any rate than I knew before. The Grosvilles are on the war-path, and they regard the coming of this poor child as the last straw." "Why?" said Ashe. Darrell gave a shrug. "Well, you know the story of Madame d'Estrées' step-daughter old Blackwater's daughter?"
"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."
"All the fault of the Grosvilles," said Ashe, after a moment, lighting another cigarette, "in shutting up their great heavy house, and drawing their great heavy curtains on a May night, when all reasonable people want to be out-of-doors. My dear mother, what's the good of paying any attention to what people like Lady Grosville say of people like Kitty?
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."
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