Part 48 (1/2)
”Well, Kitty, how's the bruised one?” said Ashe, as he sank into a chair beside Mrs. Alcot.
”Doing finely,” said Kitty. ”I shall send him home to-night.”
”Meanwhile, have you put him up in my dressing-room? I only ask for information.”
”There wasn't another corner,” said Kitty.
”There!” Ashe appealed to G.o.ds and men. ”How do you expect me to dress for dinner?”
”Oh, now, William, don't be tiresome!” said Kitty, impatiently. ”He was bruised black and blue”--(”Serve him right for getting in the way,”
grumbled Lord Grosville)--”and nurse and I have done him up in arnica.”
She came to stand by Ashe, talking in an undertone and as fast as possible. The little Dean, who never could help watching her, thought her more beautiful--and wilder--than ever. Her eyes--it was hardly enough to say they shone--they glittered--in her delicate face; her gestures were more extravagant than he remembered them; her movements restlessness itself.
Ashe listened with patience--then said:
”I can't help it, Kitty--you really must have him removed.”
”Impossible!” she said, her cheek flaming.
”I'll go and talk to Wilson; he'll manage it,” said Ashe, getting up.
Kitty pursued him, arguing incessantly.
He lounged along, turning every now and then to look at her, smiling and demurring, his hat on the back of his head.
”You see the difference,” said Mrs. Alcot, in Darrell's ear. ”Last year Kitty would have got her way. This year she won't.”
Darrell shrugged his shoulders.
”These domesticities should be kept out of sight, don't you think?”
Madeleine Alcot looked at him curiously.
”Did you have a pleasant walk?” she said.
Darrell made a little face.
”The great man was condescending.”
Madeleine Alcot's face was still interrogative.
”A touch of the _folie des grandeurs?_”
”Well, who escapes it?” said Darrell, bitterly.
Most of the party had dispersed. Only Lady Tranmore and Margaret French were on the lawn. Margaret was writing some household notes for Kitty; Lady Tranmore sat in meditation, with a book before her which she was not reading. Miss French glanced at her from time to time. Ashe's mother was beginning to show the weight of years far more plainly than she had yet done. In these last three years the face had perceptibly altered; so had the hair. The long strain of nursing, and that pathetic change which makes of the husband who has been a woman's pride and shelter her half-conscious dependent, had, no doubt, left deep marks upon a beauty which had so long resisted time. And yet Margaret French believed it was rather with her son than with her husband that the constant and wearing anxiety of Lady Tranmore's life should be connected. All the ambition, the pride of race and history which had been disappointed in her husband had poured themselves into her devotion to her son. She lived now for his happiness and success. And both were constantly threatened by the personality and the presence of Kitty.