Part 65 (1/2)
”Ah, they have found another brother!” he said, politely, and he began to point out to Kitty the various landmarks visible, the a.r.s.enal, the two asylums, San Pietro di Castello.
The new-comers just glanced at the garden apparently, as the Ashes had done on arrival, and promptly followed their guide back into the convent.
Kitty asked a few more questions, then led the way in a hasty return to the garden door, the entrance-hall, and the steps where their gondola was waiting. Nothing was to be seen of the second party. They had pa.s.sed on into the cloisters.
Animation, oddity, inconsequence, all these things Margaret observed in Kitty during luncheon in a restaurant of the Merceria, and various incidents connected with it; animation above all. The Ashes fell in with acquaintance--a fas.h.i.+onable and hara.s.sed mother, on the fringe of the Archangels, accompanied by two daughters, one pretty and one plain, and sore pressed by their demands, real or supposed. The parents were not rich, but the girls had to be dressed, taken abroad, produced at country-houses, at Ascot, and the opera, like all other girls. The eldest girl, a considerable beauty, was an accomplished egotist at nineteen, and regarded her mother as a rather inefficient _dame de compagnie_. Kitty understood this young lady perfectly, and after luncheon, over her cigarette, her little, sharp, probing questions gave the beauty twenty minutes' annoyance. Then appeared a young man, ill-dressed, red-haired, and shy. Carelessly as he greeted the mother and daughters, his entrance, however, transformed them. The mother forgot fatigue; the beauty ceased to yawn; the younger girl, who had been making surrept.i.tious notes of Kitty's costume in the last leaf of her guide-book, developed a charming gush. He was the owner of the Magellan estates and the historic Magellan Castle; a professed hater of ”absurd womankind,” and, in general, a hunted and self-conscious person.
Kitty gave him one finger, looked him up and down, asked him whether he was yet engaged, and when he laughed an embarra.s.sed ”No,” told him that he would certainly die in the arms of the Magellan housekeeper.
This got a smile out of him. He sat down beside her, and the two laughed and talked with a freedom which presently drew the attention of the neighboring tables, and made Ashe uncomfortable. He rose, paid the bill, and succeeded in carrying the whole party off to the Piazza, in search of coffee. But here again Kitty's extravagances, the provocation of her light loveliness, as she sat toying with a fresh cigarette and ”chaffing” Lord Magellan, drew a disagreeable amount of notice from the Italians pa.s.sing by.
”Mother, let's go!” said the angry beauty, imperiously, in her mother's ear. ”I don't like to be seen with Lady Kitty! She's impossible!”
And with cold farewells the three ladies departed. Then Kitty sprang up and threw away her cigarette.
”How those girls bully their mother!” she said, with scorn. ”However, it serves her right. I'm sure she bullied hers. Well, now we must go and do something. Ta-ta!”
Lord Magellan, to whom she offered another casual finger, wanted to know why he was dismissed. If they were going sight-seeing, might he not come with them?”
”Oh no!” said Kitty, calmly. ”Sight--seeing with people you don't really know is too trying to the temper. Even with one's best friend it's risky.”
”Where are you? May I call?” said the young man.
”We're always out,” was Kitty's careless reply. ”But--”
She considered--
”Would you like to see the Palazzo Vercelli?”
”That magnificent place on the Grand Ca.n.a.l? Very much.”
”Meet me there to-morrow afternoon,” said Kitty. ”Four o'clock.”
”Delighted!” said Lord Magellan, making a note on his s.h.i.+rt-cuff. ”And who lives there?”
”My mother,” said Kitty, abruptly, and walked away.
Ashe followed her in discomfort. This young man was the son of a certain Lady Magellan, an intimate friend of Lady Tranmore's--one of the n.o.blest women of her generation, pure, high-minded, spiritual, to whom neither an ugly word nor thought was possible. It annoyed him that either he or Kitty should be introducing _her_ son to Madame d'Estrees.
It was really tiresome of Kitty! Rich young men with characters yet indeterminate were not to be lightly brought in contact with Madame d'Estrees. Kitty could not be ignorant of it--poor child! It had been one of her reckless strokes, and Ashe was conscious of a sharp annoyance.
However, he said nothing. He followed his companions from church to church, till pictures became an abomination to him. Then he pleaded letters, and went to the club.
”Will you call on maman to-morrow?” said Kitty, as he turned away, looking at him a little askance.
She knew that he had disapproved of her invitation to Lord Magellan. Why had she given it? She didn't know. There seemed to be a kind of revived mischief and fever in the blood, driving her to these foolish and ill-considered things.
Ashe met her question with a shake of the head and the remark, in a decided tone, that he should be too busy.
Privately he thought it a piece of impertinence that Madame d'Estrees should expect either Kitty or himself to appear in her drawing-room at all. That this implied a complete transformation of his earlier att.i.tude he was well aware; he accepted it with a curious philosophy. When he and Kitty first met he had never troubled his head about such things. If a woman amused or interested him in society, so long as his taste was satisfied she might have as much or as little character as she pleased.