“Dearest mother!” cried Ashe, starting up.

Kitty turned.  At sight of Lady Tranmore she hung back; her smiles departed; her lip quivered.

“William!”—­she pursued him and touched him on the shoulder.  “I—­I can’t—­I’m afraid.  If mother ever means to speak to me again—­come and tell me.”

And, hiding her face, Kitty escaped like a whirlwind.  The dressing-room door closed behind her, and mother and son were left alone.

“Mother!” said Ashe, coming up to her gayly, both hands out-stretched.  “Ask me nothing, dear.  Kitty has been a silly child—­but things will go better now.  And as for the Parhams—­what does it matter?—­come and help me send them to the deuce!”

Lady Tranmore recoiled.  For once the good-humor of that handsome face—­pale as the face was—­seemed to her an offence—­nay, a disgrace.  That what had happened had been no mere contretemps, no mere accident of trains and coaches, was plain enough from Kitty’s eyes—­from all that William did not say, no less than from what he said.  And still this levity!—­this inconceivable levity!  Was it true, as she knew was said, that William had no high sense of honor, that he failed in delicacy and dignity?

In reality, it was the same cry as the Dean’s—­upon another and smaller occasion.  But in this case it was unspoken.  Lady Tranmore dropped into a chair, one hand abandoned to her son, the other hiding her face.  He talked fast and tenderly, asking her help—­neither of them quite knew for what—­her advice as to the move to Haggart—­and so forth.  Lady Tranmore said little.  But it was a bitter silence; and if Ashe himself failed in indignation, his mother’s protesting heart supplied it amply.

PART III

DEVELOPMENT

“Es bildet ein Talent sich in der Stille, Sich ein Character in dem Strom, der Welt.”

XIV

“What does Lady Kitty do with herself here?” said Darrell, looking round him.  He had just arrived from town on a visit to the Ashes, to find the Haggart house and garden completely deserted, save for Mrs. Alcot, who was lounging in solitude, with a cigarette and a novel, on the wide lawn which surrounded the house on three sides.

As he spoke he lifted a chair and placed it beside her, under one of the cedars which made deep shade upon the grass.

“She plays at Lady Bountiful,” said Mrs. Alcot.  “She doesn’t do it well, but—­”

“—­The wonder is, in Johnsonian phrase, that she should do it at all.  Anything else?”

“I understand—­she is writing a book—­a novel.”

Darrell threw back his head and laughed long and silently.

“Il ne manquait que cela,” he said—­“that Lady Kitty should take to literature!”

Mrs. Alcot looked at him rather sharply.

“Why not?  We frivolous people are a good deal cleverer than you think.”