“Look here,” he said, resolutely, “don’t tell me any more.  I don’t want to hear any more.”

“Why?” asked Darrell, in amazement.

“Because”—­Ashe hesitated a moment.  “Well, I don’t want it to be made impossible for me to go to Madame d’Estrees’ again.  Besides, we’ve just eaten her salt.”

“You’re a good friend!” said Darrell, not without something of a sneer.

Ashe was ruffled by the tone, but tried not to show it.  He merely insisted that he knew Lady Grosville to be a bit of an old cat; that of course there was something up; but it seemed a shame for those at least who accepted Madame d’Estrees’ hospitality to believe the worst.  There was a curious mixture of carelessness and delicacy in his remarks, very characteristic of the man.  It appeared as though he was at once too indolent to go into the matter, and too chivalrous to talk about it.

Darrell presently maintained a rather angry silence.  No man likes to be checked in his story, especially when the check implies something like a snub from his best friend.  Suddenly, memory brought before him the little picture of Ashe and Lady Kitty together—­he bending over her, in his large, handsome geniality, and she looking up.  Darrell felt a twinge of jealousy—­then disgust.  Really, men like Ashe had the world too easily their own way.  That they should pose, besides, was too much.

III

Rather more than a fortnight after the evening at Madame d’Estrees’, William Ashe found himself in a Midland train on his way to the Cambridgeshire house of Lady Grosville.  While the April country slipped past him—­like some blanched face to which life and color are returning—­Ashe divided his time between an idle skimming of the Saturday papers and a no less idle dreaming of Kitty Bristol.  He had seen her two or three times since his first introduction to her—­once at a ball to which Lady Grosville had taken her, and once on the terrace of the House of Commons, where he had strolled up and down with her for a most amusing and stimulating hour, while her mother entertained a group of elderly politicians.  And the following day she had come alone—­her own choice—­to take tea with Lady Tranmore, on that lady’s invitation, as prompted by her son.  Ashe himself had arrived towards the end of the visit, and had found a Lady Kitty in the height of the fashion, stiff mannered, and flushed to a deep red by her own consciousness that she could not possibly be making a good impression.  At sight of him she relaxed, and talked a great deal, but not wisely; and when she was gone, Ashe could get very little opinion of any kind from his mother, who had, however, expressed a wish that she should come and visit them in the country.