“Oh no, sir—­no, sir!” said Blanche, drying her eyes and retreating into the shadows of the room, where only a faint flame of gas was burning.  “It’s not that, sir, thank you.  I was just putting away her ladyship’s things,” she said, inconsequently, looking round the room.

“That was hardly what caused the tears, was it?” said Ashe, smiling.  “Is there anything in which Lady Kitty or I could help you?”

The girl, who had always seemed to him on excellent terms with Kitty, gave a sudden sob.

“Thank you, sir; I’ve just given her ladyship warning.”

“Indeed!” said Ashe, gravely.  “I’m sorry for that.  I thought you got on here very well.”

“I used to, sir, but this last few weeks there’s nothing pleases her ladyship; you can’t do anything right.  I’m sure I’ve worked my hands off.  But I can’t do any more.  Perhaps her ladyship will find some one else to suit her better.”

“Didn’t her ladyship try to persuade you to stay?”

“Yes—­but—­I gave warning once before, and then I stayed.  And it’s no good.  It seems as if you must do wrong.  And I don’t sleep, sir.  It gets on your nerves so.  But I didn’t mean to complain.  Good-night, sir.”

“Good-night.  Don’t sit up for your mistress.  You look tired out.  I’ll help her.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the maid, in a depressed voice, and went.

* * * * *

Half an hour later, Ashe mounted the staircase of a well-known house in Piccadilly.  The evening party was beginning to thin, but in a side drawing-room a fine Austrian band was playing Strauss, and some of the intimates of the house were dancing.

Ashe at once perceived his wife.  She was dancing with a clever Cambridge lad, a cousin of Madeleine Alcot’s, who had long been one of her adorers.  And so charming was the spectacle, so exhilarating were the youth and beauty of the pair, that Ashe presently suspected what was indeed the truth, that most of the persons gathering in the room were there to watch Kitty dance, rather than to dance themselves.  He himself watched her, though he professed to be talking to his hostess, a woman of middle age, with honest eyes and a brow of command.

“It is a delight to see Lady Kitty dance,” she said to him, smiling.  “But she is tired.  I am sure she wants the country.”

“Like my boy,” said Ashe.  “I wish to goodness they’d both go.”

“Oh, I know it’s hard to leave the husband toiling in town!” said his companion, who, as the daughter, wife, and mother of politicians, had had a long experience of official life.

Ashe glanced at her—­at her face moulded by kind and scrupulous living—­with a sudden relief from tension.  Clearly no gossip had reached her.  He lingered beside her, for the sheer pleasure of talking to her.  But their tete-a-tete was soon interrupted by the approach of Lady Parham, with a daughter—­a slim and silent girl, to whom, it was whispered, her mother was giving “a last chance” this season, before sending her into the country as a failure, and bringing out her younger sister.