devotion; and ever since the poor lad’s death, Markham Warington had been the friend and quasi-guardian of the lady—­through her second marriage, through the checkered years of her existence in London, and now through the later years of her residence on the Continent, a residence forced upon her by her agreement with the Tranmores.  Again and again he had saved her from bankruptcy, or from some worse scandal which would have wrecked the last remnants of her fame.

But, all the time, he was himself bound by strong ties of gratitude and affection to an elder sister who had brought him up, with whom he lived in Scotland during half the year.  And this stout Puritan lady detested the very name of Madame d’Estrees.

“But she’s dead,” said Ashe.  “I remember noticing her death in the Times some three months ago.  That, of course, explains it.  Now he’s free to marry.”

“And so maman will settle down, and be happy ever afterwards!” said Kitty, with a sarcastic lifting of the brow.  “Why should anybody be good?”

The bitterness of her look struck Ashe disagreeably.  That any child should speak so of a mother was a tragic and sinister thing.  But he was well aware of the causes.

“Were you very unhappy when you were a child, Kitty?” He pressed the hand he held.

“No,” said Kitty, shortly.  “I’m too like maman.  I suppose, really, at bottom, I liked all the debts, and the excitement, and the shady people!”

“That wasn’t the impression you gave me, in the first days of our acquaintance!” said Ashe, laughing.

“Oh, then I was grown up—­and there were drawbacks.  But I’m made of the same stuff as maman,” she said, obstinately—­“except that I can’t tell so many fibs.  That’s really why we didn’t get on.”

Her brown eyes held him with that strange, unspoken defiance it seemed so often beyond her power to hide.  It was like the fluttering of some caged thing hungering for it knows not what.  Then, as they scanned the patient good-temper of his face, they melted; and her little fingers squeezed his; while Margaret French kept her eyes fixed on the two columns of the Piazzetta.

“How strange to find her here!” said Kitty, under her breath.  “Now, if it had been Alice—­my sister Alice!”

William nodded.  It had been known to them for some time that Lady Alice Wensleydale, to whom Italy had become a second country, had settled in a villa near Treviso, where she occupied herself with a lace school for women and girls.

The mention of her sister threw Kitty into what seemed to be a disagreeable reverie.  The flush brought by the sea-wind faded.  Ashe looked at her with anxiety.

“You have done too much, Kitty—­as usual!”

His voice was almost angry.

She shrugged her shoulders.

“What does it matter?  You know very well it would be much better for you if—­”

“If what?”

“If I followed Harry.”  The words were just breathed, and her eyes shrank from meeting his.  Ashe, on the other hand, turned and looked at her steadily.