“You must have followed these matters for years.  Why have you never spoken in the House, or written anything?”

Ashe’s aspect changed at once.

“What would have been the good?” he said, with his easy smile.  “The fellows who didn’t know wouldn’t have believed me; and the fellows who knew didn’t want telling.”

A shade of impatience showed in Kershaw’s aspect.

“I thought,” he said, “ours was government by discussion.”

Ashe laughed, and, turning on the steps, he pointed to the splendid gardens and finely wooded park.

“Or government by country-houses—­which?  If you support us in this—­as I gather you will—­this walk will have been worth a debate—­now won’t it?”

The flattered journalist smiled, and they entered the house.  From the inner hall Lord Grosville perceived them.

“Geoffrey Cliffe’s arrived,” he said to Ashe, as they reached him.

“Has he?” said Ashe, and turned to go up-stairs.

But Kershaw showed a lively interest.  “You mean the traveller?” he asked of his host.

“I do.  As mad as usual,” said the old man.  “He and my niece Kitty make a pair.”

VI

When Ashe returned to the drawing-room he found it filled with the sound of talk and laughter.  But it was a talk and laughter in which the Grosville family seemed to have itself but little part.  Lady Grosville sat stiffly on an early Victorian sofa, her spectacles on her nose, reading the Times of the preceding day, or appearing to read it.  Amy Grosville, the eldest girl, was busy in a corner, putting the finishing touches to a piece of illumination; while Caroline, seated on the floor, was showing the small child of a neighbor how to put a picture-puzzle together.  Lord Grosville was professedly in a farther room, talking with the Austrian count; but every other minute he strolled restlessly into the big drawing-room, and stood at the edge of the talk and laughter, only to turn on his heel again and go back to the count—­who meanwhile appeared in the opening between the two rooms, his hands on his hips, eagerly watching Kitty Bristol and her companions, while waiting, as courtesy bade him, for the return of his host.

Ashe at once divined that the Grosville family were in revolt.  Nor had he to look far to discover the cause.

Was that astonishing young lady in truth identical with the pensive figure of the morning?  Kitty had doffed her black, and she wore a “demi-toilette” gown of the utmost elegance, of which the expensiveness had, no doubt, already sunk deep into Lady Grosville’s soul.  At Grosville Park the new fashion of “tea-gowns” was not favorably regarded.  It was thought to be a mere device of silly and extravagant women, and an “afternoon dress,” though of greater pretensions than a morning gown, was still a sober affair, not in any way to be confounded with those decorative effects that nature and sound sense reserved for the evening.