she has! However, it was I really who advised her to take the house."
"Naturally," said Darrell.
Harman threw a dubious look at him, then stopped a moment, and with a complacent proprietary air straightened an engraving on the staircase wall.
"I suppose the dear lady has a hundred slaves of the lamp, as usual," said Ashe. "You advise her about her house—somebody else helps her to buy her wine—"
"Not at all, my dear fellow," said Harman, offended—"as if I couldn't do that!"
"Hullo!" said Darrell, as they neared the drawing-room door. "What a crowd there is!"
For as the butler announced them, the din of talk which burst through the door implied indeed a multitude—much at their ease.
They made their way in with difficulty, shaping their course towards that corner in the room where they knew they should find their hostess. Ashe was greeted on all sides with friendly words and congratulations, and a passage was opened for him to the famous "blue sofa" where Madame d'Estrées sat enthroned.
She looked up with animation, broke off her talk with two elderly diplomats who seemed to have taken possession of her, and beckoned Ashe to a seat beside her.
"So you're in? Was it a hard fight?"
"A hard fight? Oh no! One would have had to be a great fool not to get in."
"They say you spoke very well. I suppose you promised them everything they wanted—from the crown downward?"
"Yes—all the usual harmless things," said Ashe.
Madame d'Estrées laughed; then looked at him across the top of her fan.
"Well!—and what else?"
"You can't wait for your newspaper?" he said, smiling, after a moment's pause.
She shrugged her shoulders good-humoredly.
"Oh! I know—of course I know. Is it as good as you expected?"
"As good as—" The young man opened his mouth in wonder. "What right had I to expect anything?"
"How modest! All the same, they want you—and they're very glad to get you. But you can't save them."
"That's not generally expected of Under-Secretaries, is it?"
"A good deal's expected of you. I talked to Lord Parham about you last night."
William Ashe flushed a little.
"Did you? Very kind of you."
"Not at all. I didn't flatter you in the least. Nor did he. But they're going to give you your chance!"
She bent forward and lightly patted the sleeve of his coat with the fingers of a very delicate hand. In this sympathetic aspect, Madame d'Estrées was no doubt exceedingly attractive. There were, of course, many people who were not moved by it; to whom it was the conjuring of an arch pretender. But these were generally of the female sex. Men, at any rate, lent themselves to the illusion. Ashe, certainly, had always done so. And to-night the spell still worked; though as her action drew his particular attention to her face and expression, he was aware of slight changes in her which recalled his mother's words of the afternoon. The eyes were tired; at last he perceived in them some slight signs of years and harass. Up till now her dominating charm had been a kind of timeless softness and sensuousness, which breathed from her whole personality—from her fair skin and hair, her large, smiling eyes. She put, as it were, the question of age aside. It was difficult to think of her as a child; it had been impossible to imagine her as an old woman.
"Well, this is all very surprising," said Ashe, "considering that four months ago I did not matter an old shoe to anybody."
"That was your own fault. You took no trouble. And besides—there was your poor brother in the way."
Ashe's brow contracted.
"No, that he never was," he said, with energy. "Freddy was never in anybody's way—least of all in mine."
"You know what I mean," she said, hastily. "And you know what friends he and I were—poor Freddy! But, after all, the world's the world."
"Yes—we all grow on somebody's grave," said Ashe. Then, just as she became conscious that she had jarred upon him, and must find a new opening, he himself found it. "Tell me!" he said, bending forward with a sudden alertness—"who is that lady?"
He pointed out a little figure in white, sitting in the opening of the second drawing-room; a very young girl apparently, surrounded by a group of men.
"Ah!" said Madame d'Estrées—"I was coming to that—that's my girl Kitty—"
"Lady Kitty!" said Ashe, in amazement. "She's left school? I thought she was quite a little thing."
"She's eighteen. Isn't she a darling? Don't you think her very pretty?"
Ashe looked a moment.
"Extraordinarily bewitching!—unlike other people?" he said, turning to the mother.
Madame d'Estrées raised her eyebrows a little, in apparent amusement.
"I'm not going to describe Kitty. She's indescribable. Besides—you must find her out. Do go and talk to her. She's to be half with me, half with her aunt—Lady Grosville."
Ashe made some polite comment.
"Oh! don't let's be conventional!" said Madame d'Estrées, flirting her fan with a little air of weariness—"It's an odious arrangement. Lady Grosville and I, as you probably know, are not on terms. She says atrocious things of me—and I—" the fair head fell back a little, and the white shoulders rose, with the slightest air of languid disdain—"well, bear me witness that I don't retaliate! It's not worth while. But I know that Grosville House can help Kitty. So!—" Her gesture, half ironical, half resigned, completed the sentence.
"Does Lady Kitty like society?"
"Kitty likes anything that flatters or excites her."
"Then of course she likes society. Anybody as pretty as that—"
"Ah! how sweet of you!" said Madame d'Estrées, softly—"how sweet of you! I like you to think her pretty. I like you to say so."
Ashe felt and looked a trifle disconcerted, but his companion bent forward and added—"I don't know whether I want you to flirt with her! You must take care. Kitty's the most fantastic creature. Oh! my life now'll be very different. I find she takes all my thoughts and most of my time!"
There was something extravagant in the sweetness of the smile which emphasized the speech, and altogether, Madame d'Estrées, in this new maternal aspect, was not as agreeable as usual. Part of her charm perhaps had always lain in the fact that she had no domestic topics of her own, and so was endlessly ready for those of other people. Those, indeed, who came often to her house were accustomed to speak warmly of her "unselfishness"—by which they meant the easy patience with which she could listen, smile, and flatter.
Perhaps Ashe made this tacit demand upon her, no less than other people. At any rate, as she talked cooingly on about her daughter, he would have found her tiresome for once but for some arresting quality in that small, distant figure. As it was, he followed what she said with attention, and as soon as she had been recaptured by the impatient Italian Ambassador, he moved off, intending slowly to make his way to Lady Kitty. But he was caught in many congratulations by the road, and presently he saw that his friend Darrell was being introduced to her by the old habitué of the house, Colonel Warington, who generally divided with the hostess the "lead" of these social evenings.
Lady Kitty nodded carelessly to Mr. Darrell, and he sat down beside her.
"That's a cool hand for a girl of eighteen!" thought Ashe. "She has the airs of a princess—except for the chatter."
Chatter indeed! Wherever he moved, the sound of the light hurrying voice made