“Oh! they always fill the house.  A good many came down yesterday.”

“Well, I’m not curious,” said Ashe, “except as to one person.”

“Who?”

“Lady Kitty Bristol.”

Mary Lyster smiled.

“Yes, poor child, I heard from the Grosville girls that she was to be here.”

“Why ’poor child’?”

“I don’t know.  Quite the wrong expression, I admit.  It should be ’poor hostess.’”

“Oh!—­the Grosvilles complain?”

“No.  They’re only on tenter-hooks.  They never know what she will do next.”

“How good for the Grosvilles!”

“You think society is the better for shocks?”

“Lady Grosville can do with them, anyway.  What a masterful woman!  But I’ll back Lady Kitty.”

“I haven’t seen her yet,” said Mary.  “I hear she is a very odd-looking little thing.”

“Extremely pretty,” said Ashe.

“Really?” Mary lifted incredulous eyebrows.  “Well, now I shall know what you admire.”

“Oh, my tastes are horribly catholic—­I admire so many people,” said Ashe, with a glance at the well-dressed elegance beside him.  Mary colored a little, unseen; and the rattle of the carriage as it entered the covered porch of Grosville Park cut short their conversation.

* * * * *

“Well, I’m glad you got in,” said Lady Grosville, in her full, loud voice, “because we are connections.  But of course I regard the loss of a seat to our side just now as a great disaster.”

“Very grasping, on your part!” said Ashe.  “You’ve had it all your own way lately.  Think of Portsmouth!”

Lady Grosville, however, as she met his bantering look, did not find herself at all inclined to think of Portsmouth.  She was much more inclined to think of William Ashe.  What a good-looking fellow he had grown!  She heaved an inward sigh, of mingled envy and appreciation, directed towards Lady Tranmore.

Poor Susan indeed had suffered terribly in the death of her eldest son.  But the handsomer and abler of the two brothers still remained to her—­and the estate was safe.  Lady Grosville thought of her own three daughters, plain and almost dowerless; and of that conceited young man, the heir, whom she could hardly persuade her husband to invite, once a year, for appearance sake.

“Why are we so early?” said Ashe, looking at his watch.  “I thought I should be disgracefully late.”

For he and Lady Grosville had the library to themselves.  It was a fine, book-walled room, with giallo antico columns and Adam decoration; and in its richly colored lamp-lit space, the seated figure—­stiffly erect—­of Lady Grosville, her profile, said by some to be like a horse and by others to resemble Savonarola, the cap of old Venice point that crowned her grizzled hair, her black velvet dress, and the long-fingered, ugly, yet distinguished hands which lay upon her lap, told significantly; especially when contrasted with the negligent ease and fresh-colored youth of her companion.