and silver and rose-color in the Bengal lights, and amid the sweeping clouds of smoke the wide stretches of the park, the close-packed groups of human beings, appeared and vanished like the country and creatures of a dream—­the success of Lady Kitty’s fete, the fame of her gayety and her beauty, filled the air.  She flashed hither and thither, in a dress embroidered with wild roses and a hat festooned with them—­attended always by Eddie Helston, by various curates who cherished a hopeless attachment to her, and by a fat German grand-duke, who had come in the wake of the Royalties.

Her cleverness, her resource, her organizing power were lauded to the skies, Royalty was gracious, and the grand-duke resentfully asked an aide-de-camp on the way home why he had not been informed that such a pretty person awaited him.

“I should den haf looked beforehand—­as vel as tinking behind,” said the grand-duke, as he wrapped himself sentimentally in his military cloak, to meditate on Lady Kitty’s brown eyes.

Meanwhile Lord Parham remained closeted in his sitting-room with his secretary.  Ashe tried to gain admittance, but in vain.  Lord Parham pleaded great fatigue and his letters; and asked for a Bradshaw.

“His lordship has inquired if there is a train to-night,” said the little secretary, evidently much flustered.

Ashe protested.  And, indeed, as it turned out, there was no train worth the taking.  Then Lord Parham sent a message that he hoped to appear at dinner.

Kitty locked her door while she was dressing, and Ashe, whose mind was a confusion of many feelings—­anger, compunction, and that fascination which in her brilliant moods she exercised over him no less than over others—­could get no speech with her.

They met on the threshold of the child’s room, she coming out, he going in.  But she wrenched herself from him and would say nothing.  The report of the little boy was good; he smiled at his father, and Ashe felt a cooling balm in the touch of his soft hands and lips.  He descended—­in a more philosophical mind; inclined, at any rate, to “damn” Lord Parham.  What a fool the man must be!  Why couldn’t he have taken it with a laugh, and so turned the tables on Kitty?

Was there any good to be got out of apologizing?  Ashe supposed he must attempt it some time that night.  A precious awkward business!  But relations had got to be restored somehow.

Lady Tranmore overtook him on the way down-stairs.  In the press of the afternoon they had hardly seen each other.

“What is really wrong with Lord Parham, William?” she asked him, anxiously.  Ashe hesitated, then whispered a word or two in her ear, begging her to keep the great man in play for the evening.  He was to take her in, while Kitty would fall to the Bishop of the diocese.

“She gets on perfectly with the clergy,” said Lady Tranmore, with an involuntary sigh.  Then, as the sense of humor was strong in both, they laughed.  But it was a chilly and perfunctory laughter.