Part 37 (1/2)

He turned sharply, and saw that she was alone.

”Come along, then! In five minutes more I should have been asleep on the stairs.”

They descended. Kitty went for her cloak. Ashe sent for the carriage. As he was standing on the steps Cliffe pushed past him and called for a hansom. It came in the rear of two or three carriages already under the portico. He ran along the pavement and jumped in. The doors were just being shut by the linkman when a little figure in a white cloak flew down the steps of the house and held up a hand to the driver of the hansom.

”Do you see that?” said Lady Parham, in a voice of suppressed but contemptuous amazement, as she turned to Mary Lyster, who was driving home with her. ”Call my carriage, please!” she said, imperiously, to one of the footmen at the door. Her carriage, as it happened, was immediately behind the hansom; but the hansom could not move because of the small lady who had jumped upon the step and was leaning eagerly forward.

There was a clamor of shouting voices: ”Move on, cabby! Move on!” ”Stand clear, ma'am, please,” said the driver, while Cliffe opened the door of the cab, and seemed about to jump down again.

”Who is it?” said an impatient judge behind Lady Parham. ”What's the matter?”

Lady Parham shrugged her shoulders.

”It's Lady Kitty Ashe,” whispered the _debutante_, who was the judge's daughter, ”talking to Mr. Cliffe. Isn't she pretty?”

A sudden silence fell upon the group in the porch. Kitty's high, clear laugh seemed to ring back into the house. Then Ashe ran down the steps.

”Kitty, don't stop the way.” He peremptorily drew her back.

Cliffe raised his hat, fell back into the hansom, and the man whipped up his horse.

Kitty came back to the outer hall with Ashe. Her cheeks had a rose flush, her wild eyes laughed at the crowd on the steps, without really seeing them.

”Are you going with Lady Parham?” she said, absently, to Mary Lyster.

”Yes.”

Kitty looked up and Ashe saw the two faces as she and Mary confronted each other--the contempt in Mary's, the startled wrath in Kitty's.

”Come, Miss Lyster!” said Lady Parham, and pus.h.i.+ng past the Ashes without a good-night, she hurried to her carriage, drawing up the gla.s.s with a hasty hand, though the night was balmy.

For a few moments none of those left on the steps spoke, except to fret in undertones for an absent carriage. Then Ashe saw his own groom, and stormed at him for delay. In another minute he and Kitty were in the carriage, and the figures under the porch dropped out of sight.

”Better not do that again, Kitty, I think,” said Ashe.

Kitty glanced at him. But both voice and manner were as usual. ”Why shouldn't I?” she said, haughtily; he saw that she had grown very white.

”I was telling Geoffrey where to find me at Lord's.”

Ashe winced at the ”Archangelism” of the Christian name.

”You kept Lady Parham waiting.”

”What does that matter?” said Kitty, with an angry laugh.

”And you did Cliffe too much honor,” said Ashe. ”It's the men who should stand on the steps--not the women!”

Kitty sat erect. ”What do you mean?” she said, in a low, menacing voice.