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.