"Do you know what that phrase—that name of abomination—always recalls to me?" pursued the old man.
"It bores me, even to guess," was Kitty's petulant reply.
"Does it? I think of some of the noblest people I have ever known—brave men—beautiful women—who fought Mrs. Grundy, and perished."
The Dean stood looking down upon her, with an eager, sensitive expression. Tales that he had heeded very little when he had first heard them ran through his mind; he had thought Lady Kitty's intimate tête-à-tête with her husband's assailant in the press disagreeable and unseemly; and as for Mrs. Alcot, he had disliked her particularly.
Kitty looked up unquelled.
"''Tis better to have fought and lost
Than never to have fought at all—'"
she quoted, with one of her most radiant and provoking smiles.
"Incorrigible!" cried the Dean, catching up his hat. "I see! Once an Archangel—always an Archangel."
"Oh no!" said Kitty. "There may be 'war in heaven.'"
"Well, don't take Mrs. Alcot for a leader, that's all," said the Dean, as he held out a hand of farewell.