The Marriage of William Ashe Part 27

them.

Darrell was well aware that he did not belong to them, though personally he was acquainted with almost all the members of the group. He was not completely indifferent to his exclusion; and this fact annoyed him more than the exclusion itself.

He had scarcely finished his inspection of the print when the door again opened and Geoffrey Cliffe entered. Darrell had not yet seen him since his return and since his attack on the government had made him the hero of the hour. Of the newspaper success Darrell was no less jealous and contemptuous than Lady Tranmore, though for quite other reasons. But he knew better than she the intellectual quality of the man, and his disdain for the journalist was tempered by his considerable though reluctant respect for the man of letters.

They greeted each other coolly, while Cliffe, not seeing his hostess, looked round him with annoyance.

"Well, we shall probably entertain each other," said Darrell, as they sat down. "Lady Kitty often forgets her engagements."

"Does she?" said Cliffe, coldly, pretending to glance through a book beside him. It touched his vanity that his hostess was not present, and still more that Darrell should suppose him a person to be forgotten.

Darrell, however, who had no mind for any discomfort that might be avoided, made a few dexterous advances, Cliffe's brow relaxed, and they were soon in conversation.

The position of the ministry naturally presented itself as a topic. Two or three retirements were impending, the whole position was precarious.

Would the cabinet be reconstructed without a dissolution, or must there be an appeal to the country?

Cliffe was pa.s.sionately in favor of the latter course. The party fortunes could not possibly be retrieved without a general shuffling of the cards, and an opportunity for some wholly fresh combination involving new blood.

"In any case," said Cliffe, "I suppose our friend here is sure of one or other of the big posts?"

"William Ashe? Oh, I suppose so, unless some intrigue gets in the way."

Darrell dropped his voice. "Parham doesn't, in truth, hit it off with him very well. Ashe is too clever, and Parham doesn't understand his paradoxes."

"Also I gather," said Cliffe, with a smile, "that Lady Parham has her say?"

Darrell shrugged his shoulders.

"It sounds incredible that one should still have to reckon with that kind of thing at this time of day. But I dare say it's true."

"However, I imagine Lady Kitty--by-the-way, how much longer shall we give her?"--Cliffe looked at his watch with a frown--"may be trusted to take care of that."

Darrell merely raised his eyebrows, without replying. "What, not a match for one Lady Parham?" said Cliffe, with a laugh. "I should have thought--from my old recollections of her--she would have been a match for twenty?"

"Oh, if she cared to try."

"She is not ambitious?"

"Certainly; but not always for the same thing."

"She is trying to run too many horses abreast?"

"Oh, I am not a great friend," said Darrell, smiling. "I should never dream of a.n.a.lyzing Lady Kitty. Ah!"--he turned his head--"are we not forgotten, or just remembered--which?"

For a rapid step approached, the door opened, and a lady appeared on the threshold. It was not Kitty, however. The new-comer advanced, putting up a pair of fas.h.i.+onable eye-gla.s.ses, and looking at the two men in a kind of languid perplexity, intended, as Darrell immediately said to himself, merely to prolong the moment and the effect of her entry. Mrs. Alcot was very tall, and inordinately thin. Her dark head on its slim throat, the poetic lines of the brow, her half-shut eyes, the gleam of her white teeth, and all the delicate detail of her dress, and, one might even say, of her manner, gave an impression of beauty, though she was not, in truth, beautiful. But she had grace and she had daring--the two essential qualities of an Archangel; she was also a remarkable artist, and no small critic.

"Mr. Cliffe," she said, with a start of what was evidently agreeable surprise, "Kitty never told me. When did you come?"

"I arrived a few days ago. Why weren't you at the emba.s.sy last night?"

"Because I was much better employed. I have given up crushes. But I would have come--to meet you. Ah, Mr. Darrell!" she added, in another tone, holding out an indifferent hand. "Where is Kitty?" She looked round her.

"Shall we order lunch?" said Darrell, who had given her a greeting as careless as her own.

"Kitty is really too bad; she is never less than an hour late," said Mrs. Alcot, seating herself. "Last time she dined with us I asked her for seven-thirty. She thought something very special must be happening, and arrived--breathless--at half-past eight. Then she was furious with me because she was not the last. But one can't do it twice.

Well"--addressing herself to Cliffe--"are you come home to stay?"

"That depends," said Cliffe, "on whether England makes itself agreeable to me."

"What are your deserts? Why should England be agreeable to you?" she replied, with a smiling sharpness. "You do nothing but croak about England."

Thus challenged, Cliffe sat down beside her and they fell into a bantering conversation. Darrell, though inwardly wounded by the small trouble they took to include him, let nothing appear, put in a word now and then, or turned over the pages of the ill.u.s.trated books.

After five minutes a fresh guest arrived. In walked the little Dean, Dr.

Winston, who had originally made acquaintance with Lady Kitty at Grosville Park. He came in overflowing with spirits and enthusiasm. He had been spending the morning in Westminster Abbey with another Dean more famous though not more charming than himself, and with yet another congenial spirit, one of the younger historians, all of them pa.s.sionate lovers of the rich human detail of the past, the actual men and women, kings, queens, bishops, executioners, and all the shreds and tatters that remained of them. Together they had opened a royal tomb, and the Dean's eyes were sparkling as though the ghost of the queen whose ashes he had been handling still walked and talked with him.

He pa.s.sed in his light, disinterested way through most sections of English society, though the slave of none; and he greeted Darrell and Mrs. Alcot as acquaintances. Mrs. Alcot introduced Cliffe to him, and the small Dean bowed rather stiffly. He was a supporter of the government, and he thought Cliffe's campaign against them vulgar and unfair.

"Is there no hope of Lady Kitty?" he said to Mrs. Alcot.

"Not much. Shall we go down to lunch?"

"Without our hostess?" The Dean opened his eyes.

"Oh, Kitty expects it," said Mrs. Alcot, with affected resignation, "and the servants are quite prepared. Kitty asks everybody to lunch--then somebody asks her--and she forgets. It's quite simple."

"Quite," said Cliffe, b.u.t.toning up his coat, "but I think I shall go to the club."

He was looking for his hat, when again there was a commotion on the stairs--a high voice giving orders--and in burst Kitty. She stood still as soon as she saw her guests, talking so fast and pouring out such a flood of excuses that no one could get in a word. Then she flew to each guest in turn, taking them by both hands--Darrell only excepted--and showing herself so penitent, amusing, and charming that everybody was propitiated. It was Fanchette, of course--Fanchette the criminal, the incomparable. Her dress for the ball. Kitty raised eyes and hands to heaven--it would be a marvel, a miracle. Unless, indeed, she were lying cold and quiet in her little grave before the time came to wear it. But Fanchette's tempers--Fanchette's caprices--no! Kitty began to mimic the great dressmaker torn to pieces by the crowd of fas.h.i.+onable ladies, stopping abruptly in the middle to say to Cliffe:

"You were going away? I saw you take up your hat."

"I despaired of my hostess," said Cliffe, with a smile. Then as he perceived that Mrs. Alcot had taken up the theme and was holding the others in play, he added in a lower voice, "and I was in no mood for second-best."

Kitty's eyes twinkled a moment as she turned them on Madeleine Alcot.

"Ah, _I_ remember--at Grosville Park--what a bad temper you had. You would have gone away furious."

"With disappointment--yes," said Cliffe, as he looked at her with an admiration he scarcely endeavored to conceal. Kitty was in black, but a large hat of white tulle, in the most extravagant fas.h.i.+on of the day, made a frame for her hair and eyes, and increased the general lightness and fantasy of her appearance. Cliffe tried to recall her as he had first seen her at Grosville Park, but his recollection of the young girl could not hold its own against the brilliant and emphatic reality before him.

At luncheon it chafed him that he must divide her with the Dean. Yet she was charming with the old man, who chatted history, art, and Paris to her, with a delightful innocence and ignorance of all that made Lady Kitty Ashe the talk of the town, and an old-fas.h.i.+oned deference besides, that insensibly curbed her manner and her phrases as she answered him.

Yet when the Dean left her free she returned to Cliffe, as though in some sort they two had really been talking all the time, through all the apparent conversation with other people.

"I have read all your telegrams," she said. "Why did you attack William so fiercely?"

Cliffe was taken by surprise, but he felt no embarra.s.sment--her tone was not that of the wife in arms.

"I attacked the official--not the man. William knows that."

"He is coming in to-day if possible. He wanted to see you."