Since then he frankly confessed to himself that in the intervals of his new official and administrative work he had been a good deal haunted by memories of this strange child, her eyes, her grace—­even in her fits of proud shyness—­and the way in which, as he had put her into her cab after the visit to Lady Tranmore, her tiny hand had lingered in his, a mute, astonishing appeal.  Haunted, too, by what he heard of her fortunes and surroundings.  What was the real truth of Madame d’Estrees’ situation?  During the preceding weeks some ugly rumors had reached Ashe of financial embarrassment in that quarter, of debts risen to mountainous height, of crisis and possible disappearance.  Then these rumors were met by others, to the effect that Colonel Warington, the old friend and support of the d’Estrees’ household, had come to the rescue, that the crisis had been averted, and that the three weekly evenings, so well known and so well attended, would go on; and with this phase of the story there mingled, as Ashe was well aware, not the slightest breath of scandal, in a case where, so to speak, all was scandal.

And meanwhile what new and dolorous truths had Lady Kitty been learning as to her mother’s history and her mother’s position?  By Jove! it was hard upon the girl.  Darrell was right.  Why not leave her to her French friends and relations?—­or relinquish her to Lady Grosville?  Madame d’Estrees had seen little or nothing of her for years.  She could not, therefore, be necessary to her mother’s happiness, and there was a real cruelty in thus claiming her, at the very moment of her entrance into society, where Madame d’Estrees could only stand in her way.  For although many a man whom the girl might profitably marry was to be found among the mother’s guests, the influences of Madame d’Estrees’ “evenings” were certainly not matrimonial.  Still the unforeseen was surely the probable in Lady Kitty’s case.  What sort of man ought she to marry—­what sort of man could safely take the risks of marrying her—­with that mother in the background?

He descended at the way-side station prescribed to him, and looked round him for fellow-guests—­much as the card-player examines his hand.  Mary Lyster, a cabinet minister—­filling an ornamental office and handed on from ministry to ministry as a kind of necessary appendage, the public never knew why—­the minister’s second wife, an attache from the Austrian embassy, two members of Parliament, and a well-known journalist—­Ashe said to himself flippantly that so far the trumps were not many.  But he was always reasonably glad to see Mary, and he went up to her, cared for her bag, and made her put on her cloak, with cousinly civility.  In the omnibus on the way to the house he and Mary gossiped in a corner, while the cabinet minister and the editor went to sleep, and the two members of Parliament practised some courageous French on the Austrian attache.

“Is it to be a large party?” he asked of his companion.