Part 16 (2/2)

And he made for the door, which he held open for her. It was now Mary Lyster's turn to flush--the rebuff had been so naked and unadorned. Ashe rose as Kitty pa.s.sed him.

”Why don't you come, too?” she said, pausing. There was a flash from eyes deep and dark beneath a pair of wilful brows. ”Aunt Lina would never be cross with _you_!”

”Thank you! I should be delighted to play buffer, but unfortunately I have some work I must do before dinner.”

”Must you?” She looked at him uncertainly, then at Cliffe. In the dusk of the large, heavily furnished room, the pale yet brilliant gold of her hair, her white dress, her slim energy and elegance drew all their eyes--even Mary Lyster's.

”I must,” Ashe repeated, smiling. ”I am glad your headache is so much better.”

”It is not in the least better!”

”Then you disguise it like a heroine.”

He stood beside her, looking down upon her, his height and strength measured against her smallness. Apparently his amused detachment, the slight dryness of his tone annoyed her. She made a tart reply and vanished through the door that Cliffe held open for her.

Ashe retired to his own room, dealt with some Foreign Office work, and then allowed himself a meditative smoke. The click of the billiard-b.a.l.l.s had ceased abruptly about ten minutes after he had begun upon his papers; there had been voices in the hall, Lord Grosville's he thought among them; and now all was silence.

He thought of the events of the afternoon with mingled amus.e.m.e.nt and annoyance. Cliffe was an unscrupulous fellow, and the child's head might be turned. She should be protected from him in future--he vowed she should. Lady Tranmore should take it in hand. She had been a match for Cliffe in various other directions before this.

What brought the man, with his notorious character and antecedents, to Grosville Park--one of the dwindling number of country-houses in England where the old Puritan restrictions still held? It was said he was on the look-out for a post--Ashe, indeed, happened to know it officially; and Lord Grosville had a good deal of influence. Moreover, failing an appointment, he was understood to be aiming at Parliament and office; and there were two safe county-seats within the Grosville sphere.

”Yet even when he wants a thing he can't behave himself in order to get it,” thought Ashe. ”Anybody else would have turned Sabbatarian for once, and refrained from flirting with the Grosvilles' niece. But that's Cliffe all over--and perhaps the best thing about him.”

He might have added that as Cliffe was supposed to desire an appointment under either the Foreign Office or the Colonial Office, it might have been thought to his interest to show himself more urbane than he had in fact shown himself that afternoon to the new Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs. But Ashe rarely or never indulged himself in reflections of that kind. Besides, he and Cliffe knew each other too well for posing.

There was a time when they had been on very friendly terms, and when Cliffe had been constantly in his mother's drawing-room. Lady Tranmore had a weakness for ”influencing” young men of family and ability; and Cliffe, in fact, owed her a good deal. Then she had seen cause to think ill of him; and, moreover, his travels had taken him to the other side of the world. Ashe was now well aware that Cliffe reckoned on him as a hostile influence and would not try either to deceive or to propitiate him.

He thought Cliffe had been disagreeably surprised to see him that afternoon. Perhaps it was the sudden sense of antagonism acting on the man's excitable nature that had made him fling himself into the wild nonsense he had talked with Lady Kitty.

And thenceforward Ashe's thoughts were possessed by Kitty only--Kitty in her two aspects, of the morning and the afternoon. He dressed in a reverie, and went down-stairs still dreaming.

At dinner he found himself responsible for Mary Lyster. Kitty was on the other side of the table, widely separated both from himself and Cliffe.

She was in a little Empire dress of blue and silver, as extravagantly simple as her gown of the afternoon had been extravagantly elaborate.

Ashe observed the furtive study that the Grosville girls could not help bestowing upon her--upon her shoulder-straps and long, bare arms, upon her high waist and the blue and silver bands in her hair. Kitty herself sat in a pensive or proud silence. The Dean was beside her, but she scarcely spoke to him, and as to the young man from the neighborhood who had taken her in, he was to her as though he were not.

”Has there been a row?” Ashe inquired, in a low voice, of his companion.

Mary looked at him quietly.

”Lord Grosville asked them not to play--because of the servants.”

”Good!” said Ashe. ”The servants were, of course, playing cards in the house-keeper's room.”

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