Kitty, you ought to go on the stage!” and she smiled upon him, too, in a flutter of feeling, forgetting his scolding and her own impertinence, before dinner.  The revulsion, indeed, throughout the company—­with two exceptions—­was complete.  For the rest of the evening Kitty basked in sunshine and flattery.  She met it with a joyous gentleness, and the little figure, still bedraped in white, became the centre of the room’s kindness.

The Dean was triumphant.

“My dear Miss Lyster,” he said, presently, finding himself near that lady, “did you ever hear anything better done?  A most remarkable talent!”

Mary smiled.

“I am wondering,” she said, “what they teach you in French convents—­and why!  It is all so singular,—­isn’t it?”

* * * * *

Late that night Ashe entered his room—­before his usual time, however.  He had tired even of Lord Grosville’s chat, and had left the smoking-room still talking.  Indeed, he wished to be alone, and there was that in his veins which told him that a new motive had taken possession of his life.

He sat beside the open window reviewing the scenes and feelings of the day—­his interview with Kitty in the morning—­the teasing coquette of the afternoon—­the inspired poetic child of the evening.  Rapidly, but none the less strongly and steadfastly, he made up his mind.  He would ask Kitty Bristol to marry him, and he would ask her immediately.

Why?  He scarcely knew her.  His mother, his family would think it madness.  No doubt it was madness.  Yet, as far as he could explain his impulse himself, it depended on certain fundamental facts in his own nature—­it was in keeping with his deepest character.  He had an inbred love of the difficult, the unconventional in life, of all that piqued and stimulated his own superabundant consciousness of resource and power.  And he had a tenderness of feeling, a gift of chivalrous pity, only known to the few, which was in truth always hungrily on the watch, like some starved faculty that cannot find its outlet.  The thought of this beautiful child, in the hands of such a mother as Madame d’Estrees, and rushing upon risks illustrated by the half-mocking attentions of Geoffrey Cliffe, did in truth wring his heart.  With a strange imaginative clearness he foresaw her future, he beheld her the prey at once of some bad fellow and of her own temperament.  She would come to grief; he saw the prescience of it in her already; and what a waste would be there!

No!—­he would step in—­capture her before these ways and whims, now merely bizarre or foolish, stiffened into what might in truth destroy her.  His pulse quickened as he thought of the development of this beauty, the ripening of this intelligence.  Never yet had he seen a girl whom he much wished to marry.  He was easily repelled by stupidity, still more by mere amiability.  Some touch of acid, of roughness in the fruit—­that drew him, in