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Ashe exclaimed. "You know it's true. My mother is not received. Can you deny that?" "She has many friends," said Ashe. "She is not received. When I speak of her no one answers me. Lady Grosville asked me here me out of charity. It would be thought a disgrace to marry me " "Look here, Lady Kitty!
"No, I don't know them," said Ashe. Lord Grosville's face expressed surprise. "Well, this finished it," he said. "Poor child!" said Ashe, slowly, putting down his cigarette and turning a thoughtful look on the carpet. "Alice?" said Lord Grosville. "No." "Oh! you mean Kitty? Yes, I had forgotten her for the moment. Yes, poor child."
She thought of the Sunday afternoon at Grosville Park when they had tried to play billiards, and Lord Grosville had come down on them; or she saw him sitting opposite to her, at supper, on the night of the fancy ball, in the splendid Titian dress, while she gloated over the thoughts of the trick she had played on Mary Lyster or bending over her when she woke from her swoon at Verona.
But Ashe had recognized Mademoiselle D. The matter of the letter recurred to him. He guessed that she had already delivered it. But where? At breakfast Lady Kitty did not appear. Ashe made inquiries of the younger Miss Grosville, who replied with some tartness that she supposed Kitty had a cold, and hurried off herself to dress for Sunday-school.
And what on earth is the matter?" After the ladies had gone to bed, on the night of Lady Kitty's recitation, William Ashe stayed up till past midnight talking with old Lord Grosville.
"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.
She seemed to suggest all those aspects of the English Sunday for which he had most secret dislike its Pharisaism and dulness and heavy meals. He felt himself through and through Lady Kitty's champion. "I should have thought it very natural," was his reply. Lady Grosville threw up her hands. "Natural! when she knows " "How can she know?" cried Ashe, hotly.
"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?"
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."
And yet, as she looked at him, she thought suddenly of the moonlit garden at Grosville Park, and of that young, headlong chivalry with which he had thrown himself at her feet.
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