United States or Guinea ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
For the front door closed heavily, and instantly the house was aware from top to toe of a flutter of talk and a frou-frou of skirts. Kitty ran up the stairs and into the drawing-room, still talking, apparently, to the footman behind her, and stopped short at the sight of Lady Tranmore and Margaret. A momentary shadow passed across her face; then she came forward all smiles.
"But look here, Mary, tell me about yourself. What have you been doing? dancing riding, eh?" He threw himself down beside her, and began an elder-brotherly cross-examination, which lasted till Lady Tranmore returned and begged him to go at once to his father. When he returned to the drawing-room, Ashe found his mother alone.
Mary was, indeed, on apparently good terms with her cousin's wife. She dined occasionally at the Ashes', and she and Kitty met frequently under the wing of Lady Tranmore. There was no cordiality between them, and Kitty was often sharply or sulkily certain that Mary was to be counted among those hostile forces with which, in some of her moods, the world seemed to her to bristle.
She looked, indeed, unusually handsome and animated; Lady Tranmore was certain that Cliffe had noticed as much, at his first sight of her. But the remarks she omitted showed how minute and recent was their knowledge of each other's movements. Cliffe himself gave a first impression of high spirits.
"Certainly, Hudson, certainly," said the young man. "Tell his lordship I'll be with him in ten minutes." Then, as the butler departed "How's father, mother?" "Oh! much as usual," said Lady Tranmore, sadly. "And you?" He laid his arm boyishly round her waist, and looked up at her, his handsome face all affection and life.
Meanwhile Lady Tranmore had reached home, and after one of those pathetic hours in her husband's room which made the secret and sacred foundation of her daily life, she expected Mary Lyster, who was to dine at Tranmore House before the two ladies presented themselves at a musical party given by the French Ambassadress.
Lady Tranmore's eyebrows went up, and she could not restrain the word: "Alone?" "Naturellement!" laughed Kitty. "He reads me French poetry, and we talk French. We let Madeleine Alcot come once, but her accent was so shocking that Geoffrey wouldn't have her again!" Lady Tranmore flushed deeply. The "Geoffrey" seemed to her intolerable.
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?
So said Lady Kitty's maid. Lady Tranmore hesitated, then said she would wait, and asked that Master Henry might be brought down. The maid went for the child, and Lady Tranmore entered the drawing-room. The Ashes had been settled since their marriage in a house in Hill Street a house to which Kitty had lost her heart at first sight.
And at Ascot, at Lord's, the opera, Lady Kitty sits with him, talks with him, walks with him, the whole time, and won't look at any one else. They must be asked together or neither will come and 'society, as far as I can make out, thinks it a good joke and is always making plans to throw them together." "Can't Lady Tranmore do anything?" "I don't know. They say she is very unhappy about it.
Word Of The Day