It was a Friday, in the first week of August.  Ashe was leaving the Athenaeum with another member of the House when a newspaper boy rushing along with a fresh bundle of papers passed them with the cry, “New cabinet complete!  Official list!” They caught him up, snatched a paper, and read.  Two men of middle age, conspicuous in Parliament, but not hitherto in office, one of them of great importance as a lawyer, the other as a military critic, were appointed, the one to the Home Office, the other to the Ministry of War; there had been some shuffling in the minor offices, and a new Privy Seal had dawned upon the world.  For the rest, all was as before, and in the formal list the name of the Honorable William Travers Ashe still remained attached to the Under-Secretaryship for Foreign Affairs.

Ashe’s friend shrugged his shoulders, and avoided looking at his companion.  “A bomb-shell, to begin with,” he said; “otherwise the flattest thing out.”

“On the contrary,” laughed Ashe.  “Parham has shown a wonderful amount of originality.  If you and I are taken by surprise, what will the public be?  And they’ll like him all the better—­you’ll see.  He has shown courage and gone for new men—­that’s what they’ll say. Vive Parham!  Well, good-bye.  Now, please the Lord, we shall get off—­and I may be among the grouse this day week.”

He stopped on his way out of the club to discuss the list with the men coming in.  He was conscious that some would have avoided him.  But he had no mind to be avoided, and his caustic, good-humored talk carried off the situation.  Presently he was walking homeward, swinging his stick with the gayety of a school-boy expecting the holidays.

As he mounted St. James’s Street a carriage descended.  Ashe mechanically took off his hat to the half-recognized face within, and as he did so perceived the icy bow and triumphant eyes of Lady Parham.

He hurried along, fighting a curious sensation, as of a physical bruising and beating.  The streets were full of the news, and he was stopped many times by mere acquaintances to talk of it.  In Savile Row he turned into a small literary club of which he was a member, and wrote a letter to his mother.  In very affectionate and amusing terms it begged her not to take the disappointment too seriously.  “I think I won’t come round to-night.  But expect me first thing to-morrow.”

He sent the note by messenger and walked home.  When he reached Hill Street it was close on eight.  Outside the house he suddenly asked himself what line he was going to take with Kitty.

Kitty, however, was not at home.  As far as he could remember she had gone coaching with the Alcots into Surrey, Geoffrey Cliffe, of course, being of the party.  Presently, indeed, he discovered a hasty line from her on his study table, to say that they were to dine at Richmond, and “Madeleine” supposed they would get home between ten and eleven.  Not a word more.  Like all strong men, Ashe despised the meditations of self-pity.  But the involuntary reflection that on this evening of humiliation Kitty was not with him—­did not apparently care enough about his affairs and his ambitions to be with him—­brought with it a soreness which had to be endured.