Ashe moved impatiently.

“Lady Kitty, I don’t like to hear you talk like this.  It’s wild, and it’s also—­I beg your pardon—­”

“In bad taste?” she said, catching him up breathlessly.  “That’s what you meant, isn’t it?  You said it to me before, when I called you handsome.”

“Pshaw!” he said, in vexation.  She watched him throw himself back and feel for his cigarette-case; a gesture of her hand gave him leave; she waited, smiling, till he had taken a few calming whiffs.  Then she gently moved towards him.

“Don’t be angry with me!” she said, in a sweet, low voice.  “Don’t you understand how hard it is—­to have that nature—­and then to come here out of the convent—­where one had lived on dreams—­and find one’s self—­”

She turned her head away.  Ashe put down his new-lit cigarette.

“Find yourself?” he repeated.

“Everybody scorns me!” she said, her brow drooping.

Ashe exclaimed.

“You know it’s true.  My mother is not received.  Can you deny that?”

“She has many friends,” said Ashe.

“She is not received.  When I speak of her no one answers me.  Lady Grosville asked me here—­me—­out of charity.  It would be thought a disgrace to marry me—­”

“Look here, Lady Kitty!—­”

“And I”—­she wrung her small hands, as though she clasped the necks of her enemies—­“I would never look at a man who did not think it the glory of his life to win me.  So you see, I shall never marry.  But then the dreadful thing is—­”

She let him see a white, stormy face.

“That I have no loyalty to maman—­I—­I don’t think I even love her.”

Ashe surveyed her gravely.

“You don’t mean that,” he said.

“I think I do,” she persisted.  “I had a horrid childhood.  I won’t tell tales; but, you see, I don’t know maman.  I know the Soeurs much better.  And then for some one you don’t know—­to have to—­to have to bear—­this horrible thing—­”

She buried her face in her hands.  Ashe looked at her in perplexity.

“You sha’n’t bear anything horrible,” he said, with energy.  “There are plenty of people who will take care of that.  Do you mind telling me—­have there been special difficulties just lately?”

“Oh yes,” she said, calmly, looking up, “awful!  Maman’s debts are—­well—­ridiculous.  For that alone I don’t think she’ll be able to stay in London—­apart from—­Alice.”

The name recalled all she had just passed through, and her face quivered.  “What will she do?” she said, under her breath.  “How will she punish us?—­and why?—­for what?”

Her dread, her ignorance, her fierce, bruised vanity, her struggling pride, her helplessness, appealed amazingly to the man beside her.  He began to talk to her very gently and wisely, begging her to let the past alone, to think only what could be done to help the present.  In the first place, would she not let his mother be of use to her?