“A good deal’s expected of you.  I talked to Lord Parham about you last night.”

William Ashe flushed a little.

“Did you?  Very kind of you.”

“Not at all.  I didn’t flatter you in the least.  Nor did he.  But they’re going to give you your chance!”

She bent forward and lightly patted the sleeve of his coat with the fingers of a very delicate hand.  In this sympathetic aspect, Madame d’Estrees was no doubt exceedingly attractive.  There were, of course, many people who were not moved by it; to whom it was the conjuring of an arch pretender.  But these were generally of the female sex.  Men, at any rate, lent themselves to the illusion.  Ashe, certainly, had always done so.  And to-night the spell still worked; though as her action drew his particular attention to her face and expression, he was aware of slight changes in her which recalled his mother’s words of the afternoon.  The eyes were tired; at last he perceived in them some slight signs of years and harass.  Up till now her dominating charm had been a kind of timeless softness and sensuousness, which breathed from her whole personality—­from her fair skin and hair, her large, smiling eyes.  She put, as it were, the question of age aside.  It was difficult to think of her as a child; it had been impossible to imagine her as an old woman.

“Well, this is all very surprising,” said Ashe, “considering that four months ago I did not matter an old shoe to anybody.”

“That was your own fault.  You took no trouble.  And besides—­there was your poor brother in the way.”

Ashe’s brow contracted.

“No, that he never was,” he said, with energy.  “Freddy was never in anybody’s way—­least of all in mine.”

“You know what I mean,” she said, hastily.  “And you know what friends he and I were—­poor Freddy!  But, after all, the world’s the world.”

“Yes—­we all grow on somebody’s grave,” said Ashe.  Then, just as she became conscious that she had jarred upon him, and must find a new opening, he himself found it.  “Tell me!” he said, bending forward with a sudden alertness—­“who is that lady?”

He pointed out a little figure in white, sitting in the opening of the second drawing-room; a very young girl apparently, surrounded by a group of men.

“Ah!” said Madame d’Estrees—­“I was coming to that—­that’s my girl Kitty—­”

“Lady Kitty!” said Ashe, in amazement.  “She’s left school?  I thought she was quite a little thing.”

“She’s eighteen.  Isn’t she a darling?  Don’t you think her very pretty?”

Ashe looked a moment.

“Extraordinarily bewitching!—­unlike other people?” he said, turning to the mother.

Madame d’Estrees raised her eyebrows a little, in apparent amusement.

“I’m not going to describe Kitty.  She’s indescribable.  Besides—­you must find her out.  Do go and talk to her.  She’s to be half with me, half with her aunt—­Lady Grosville.”