“You’re a very rococo sort of goddess, you know, Kitty!” said Ashe.  “Not much Greek about you!”

“Quite as much as I want, thank you,” said Kitty, courtesying to her own reflection in the glass.  “Fanchette could have taught them a thing or two!  Now come along!  Ah!  Wait!”

And, gathering up her possessions, she left the room.  Ashe, following her, saw that she was going to the nursery, a large room on the back staircase.  At the threshold she turned back and put her finger to her lip.  Then she slipped in, reappearing a moment afterwards to say, in a whisper, “Nurse is not in bed.  You may come in.”  Nurse, indeed, knew much better than to be in bed.  She had been sitting up to see her ladyship’s splendors, and she rose smiling as Ashe entered the room.

“A parcel of idiots, nurse, aren’t we?” he said, as he, too, displayed himself, and then he followed Kitty to the child’s bedside.  She bent over the baby, removed a corner of the cot-blanket that might tease his cheek, touched the mottled hand softly, removed a light that seemed to her too near—­and still stood looking.

“We must go, Kitty.”

“I wish he were a little older,” she said, discontentedly, under her breath, “that he might wake up and see us both!  I should like him to remember me like this.”

“Queen and huntress, come away!” said Ashe, drawing her by the hand.

Outside the landing was dimly lighted.  The servants were all waiting in the hall below.

“Kitty,” said Ashe, passionately, “give me one kiss.  You’re so sweet to-night—­so sweet!”

She turned.

“Take care of my dress!” she smiled, and then she held out her face under its sparkling crescent, held it with a dainty deliberation, and let her lips cling to his.

* * * * *

Ashe and Kitty were soon wedged into one of the interminable lines of carriages that blocked all the approaches to St. James’s Square.  The ball had been long expected, and there was a crowd in the streets, kept back by the police.  The brougham went at a foot’s pace, and there was ample time either for reverie or conversation.  Kitty looked out incessantly, exclaiming when she caught sight of a costume or an acquaintance.  Ashe had time to think over the latest phase of the negotiations with America, and to go over in his mind the sentences of a letter he had addressed to the Times in answer to one of great violence from Geoffrey Cliffe.  His own letter had appeared that morning.  Ashe was proud of it.  He made bold to think that it exposed Cliffe’s exaggerations and insincerities neatly, and perhaps decisively.  At any rate, he hummed a cheerful tune as he thought of it.

Then suddenly and incongruously a recollection occurred to him.

“Kitty, do you know that I had a letter from your mother, this morning?”

“Had you?” said Kitty, turning to him with reluctance.  “I suppose she wanted some money.”