"I used to, sir, but this last few weeks there's nothing pleases her ladyship; you can't do anything right. I'm sure I've worked my hands off. But I can't do any more. Perhaps her ladyship will find some one else to suit her better."
"Didn't her ladyship try to persuade you to stay?"
"Yes—but—I gave warning once before, and then I stayed. And it's no good. It seems as if you must do wrong. And I don't sleep, sir. It gets on your nerves so. But I didn't mean to complain. Good-night, sir."
"Good-night. Don't sit up for your mistress. You look tired out. I'll help her."
"Thank you, sir," said the maid, in a depressed voice, and went.
Half an hour later, Ashe mounted the staircase of a well-known house in Piccadilly. The evening party was beginning to thin, but in a side drawing-room a fine Austrian band was playing Strauss, and some of the intimates of the house were dancing.
Ashe at once perceived his wife. She was dancing with a clever Cambridge lad, a cousin of Madeleine Alcot's, who had long been one of her adorers. And so charming was the spectacle, so exhilarating were the youth and beauty of the pair, that Ashe presently suspected what was indeed the truth, that most of the persons gathering in the room were there to watch Kitty dance, rather than to dance themselves. He himself watched her, though he professed to be talking to his hostess, a woman of middle age, with honest eyes and a brow of command.
"It is a delight to see Lady Kitty dance," she said to him, smiling. "But she is tired. I am sure she wants the country."
"Like my boy," said Ashe. "I wish to goodness they'd both go."