"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 fashion 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-fashioned 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 embarrassment—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."
"Good news! William knows that he would have hit just as hard in my place."