exquisite white head with a natural charm and energy akin to hers—­mellowed though it were by time, and dignified by office.  He began eagerly to talk to her of Paris.  His father had been ambassador for a time under Louis Philippe, and he had boyish memories of the great house in the Faubourg St. Honore, and of the Orleanist ministers and men of letters.  And lo!  Kitty met him at once, in a glow and sparkle that enchanted the old man.  Moreover, it appeared that this much-beflounced young lady could talk; that she had heard of the famous names and the great affairs to which the Dean made allusion; that she possessed indeed a native and surprising interest in matter of the sort; and a manner, above all, with the old, alternately soft and daring, calculated, as Lady Grosville would no doubt have put it, merely to make fools of them.

In her cousins’ house, it seemed, she had talked with old people, survivors of the Orleanist and Bourbon regimes—­even of the Empire; had sat at their feet, a small, excited hero-worshipper; and had then rushed blindly into the memoirs and books that concerned them.  So, in this French world the child had found time for other things than hunting, and the flattery of her cousin Henri?  Ashe was supposed to be devoting himself to the Dean’s wife; but both he and she listened most of the time to the sallies and the laughter of the circle where Kitty presided.

“My dear young lady,” cried the delighted Dean, “I never find anybody who can talk of these things—­it is really astonishing.  Ah, now, we English know nothing of France—­nor they of us.  Why, I was a mere school-boy then, and I had a passion for their society, and their books—­for their plays—­dare I confess it?”—­he lowered his voice and glanced at his hostess—­“their plays, above all!”

Kitty clapped her hands.  The Dean looked at her, and ran on: 

“My mother shared it.  When I came over for my Eton holidays, she and I lived at the Theatre-Francais.  Ah, those were days! I remember Mademoiselle Mars in ‘Hernani.’”

Kitty bounded in her seat.  Whereupon it appeared that just before she left Paris she had been taken by a friend to see the reigning idol of the Comedie-Francaise, the young and astonishing actress, Sarah Bernhardt, as Dona Sol.  And there began straightway an excited duet between her and the Dean; a comparison of old and new, a rivalry of heroines, a hot and critical debate that presently silenced all other conversation in the room, and brought Lord Grosville to stand gaping and astounded behind the Dean, reflecting no doubt that this was not precisely the Dean of the Diocesan Conference.