“She did.  She says she is very hard up.  If I cared to use it, I have an easy reply.”

“What do you mean?”

“I might say,’ D—–­n it, we are, too!’”

Kitty laughed uneasily.

“Don’t begin to talk money matters now, William, please.”

“No, dear, I won’t.  But we shall really have to draw in.”

“You will pay so many debts!” said Kitty, frowning.

Ashe went into a fit of laughter.

“That’s my extravagance, isn’t it?  I assure you I go on the most approved principles.  I divide our available money among the greatest number of hungry claimants it will stretch to.  But, after all, it goes a beggarly short way.”

“I know mother will think my diamond crescent a horrible extravagance,” said Kitty, pouting.  “But you are the only son, William, and we must behave like other people.”

“Dear, don’t trouble your little head,” he said; “I’ll manage it, somehow.”

Indeed, he knew very well that he could never bring his own indolent and easy-going temper in such matters to face any real struggle with Kitty over money.  He must go to his mother, who now—­his father being a hopeless invalid—­managed the estates with his own and the agent’s help.  It was, of course, right that she should preach to Kitty a little; but she would be sensible and help them out.  After all, there was plenty of money.  Why shouldn’t Kitty spend it?

Any one who knew him well might have observed a curious contrast between his private laxity in these matters and the strictness of his public practice.  He was scruple and delicacy itself in all financial matters that touched his public life—­directorships, investments, and the like, no less than in all that concerned interest and patronage.  He would have been a bold man who had dared to propose to William Ashe any expedient whatever by which his public place might serve his private gain.  His proud and fastidious integrity, indeed, was one of the sources of his growing power.  But as to private debts—­and the tradesmen to whom they were owed—­his standards were still essentially those of the Whigs from whom he descended, of Fox, the all-indebted, or of Melbourne, who has left an amusing disquisition on the art of dividing a few loaves and fishes in the shape of bank-notes among a multitude of creditors.

Not that affairs were as yet very bad.  Far from it.  But there was little to spare for Madame d’Estrees, who ought, indeed, to want nothing; and Ashe was vaguely meditating his reply to that lady when a face in a carriage near them, which was trying to enter the line, caught his attention.

“Mary!” he said, “a la Sir Joshua—­and mother.  They don’t see us.  Query, will Cliffe take the leap to-night?  Mother reports a decided increase of ardor on his part.  Sorry you don’t approve of it, darling!”

“It’s just like lighting a lamp to put it out—­that’s all!” said Kitty, with vivacity.  “The man who marries Mary is done for.”