Meanwhile the outer room gathered to hear the recitation of some vers de societe, fondly believed by their author to be of a very pretty and Praedian make.  They certainly amused the company, who laughed and clapped as each neat personality emerged.  Lady Kitty passed the time either in a running commentary on the reciter, which occasionally convulsed her companion, or else in holding her small hands over her ears.

When it was over, she drew a long breath.

“How maman can! Oh! how bete you English are to applaud such a man!  You have only one poet, haven’t you—­one living poet?  Ah!  I shouldn’t have laughed if it had been he!”

“I suppose you mean Geoffrey Cliffe?” said Ashe, amused.  “Nobody abroad seems ever to have heard of any one else.”

“Well, of course, I just long to know him!  Every one says he is so dangerous!—­he makes all the women fall in love with him.  That’s delicious!  He shouldn’t make me!  Do you know him?”

“I knew him at Eton.  We were ‘swished’ together,” said Ashe.

She inquired what the phrase might mean, and when informed, flushed hotly, denouncing the English school system as quite unfit for gentlemen and men of honor.  Her French cousins would sooner die than suffer such a thing.  Then in the midst of her tirade she suddenly paused, and fixing Ashe with her brilliant eyes, she asked him a surprising question, in a changed and steady voice: 

“Is Lady Tranmore not well?”

Ashe was fairly startled.

“Thank you, I left her quite well.  Have you—­”

“Did maman ask her to come to-night?”

It was Ashe’s turn to redden.

“I don’t know.  But—­we are in mourning, you see, for my brother.”

Her face changed and softened instantly.

“Are you?  I’m so sorry.  I—­I always say something stupid.  Then—­Lady Tranmore used to come to maman’s parties—­before—­”

She had grown quite pale; it seemed to him that her hand shook.  Ashe felt an extraordinary pang of pity and concern.

“It’s I, you see, to whom your mother has been kind,” he said, gently.  “We’re an independent family; we each make our own friends.”

“No—­” she said, drawing a deep breath.  “No, it’s not that.  Look at that room.”

Following her slight gesture, Ashe looked.  It was an old, low-ceiled room, panelled in white and gold, showing here and there an Italian picture—­saint, or holy family, agreeable school-work—­from which might be inferred the tastes if not the expertise of Madame d’Estrees’ first husband, Lord Blackwater.  The floor was held by a plentiful collection of seats, neither too easy nor too stiff; arranged by one who understood to perfection the physical conditions at least which should surround the “great art” of conversation.  At this moment every seat was full.  A sea of black coats overflowed on the farther side, into the staircase landing, where