"Ashe always strikes me as the soul of honor," said the other, indignantly.
"Of course—for himself. But a more fatalist believer in liberty than Ashe doesn't exist—liberty especially to damn yourself—if you must and will."
"It would be hard to extend that doctrine to a wife," said the other, with a grave, uncomfortable laugh.
Meanwhile the man whose affairs they had been discussing walked home, wrapped in solitary and disagreeable thought. As he neared the Marlborough House corner a carriage passed him. It was delayed a moment by other carriages, and as it halted beside him Ashe recognized Lady M——, the hostess of the fancy ball, and a very old friend of his parents. He took off his hat. The lady within recognized him and inclined slightly—very slightly and stiffly. Ashe started a little and walked on.
The meeting vividly recalled the ball, the terminus a quo indeed from which the meditation in which he had been plunged since entering the park had started. Between six and seven weeks ago, was it? It might have been a century. He thought of Kitty as she was that night—Kitty pirouetting in her glittering dress, or bending over the boy, or holding her face to his as he kissed her on the stairs. Never since had she shown him the smallest glimpse of such a mood. What was wrong with her and with himself? Something, since May, had turned their life topsy-turvy, and it seemed to Ashe that in the general unprofitable rush of futile engagements he had never yet had time to stop and ask himself what it might be.
Why, at any rate, was he in this chafing irritation and discomfort? Why could he not deal with that fellow Cliffe as he deserved? And what in Heaven's name was the reason why old friends like Lady M—— were beginning to look at him coldly, and avoid his conversation?
His mother, too! He gathered that quite lately there had been some disagreeable scene between her and Kitty. Kitty had resented some remonstrance of hers, and for some days now they had not met. Nor had Ashe seen his mother alone. Did she also avoid him, shrink from speaking out her real mind to him?
Well, it was all monstrously absurd!—a great coil about nothing, as far as the main facts were concerned, although the annoyance and worry of the thing were indeed becoming serious. Kitty had no doubt taken a wild liking to Geoffrey Cliffe—
"And, by George!" said Ashe, pausing in his walk, "she warned me."