It was true, indeed, that Kitty's eccentricity seemed to develop with every month that passed. The preceding winter had been marked, first by a mad folly of table-turning—involving the pursuit of a particular medium whose proceedings had ultimately landed him in the dock; then by a headlong passion for hunting, accompanied by a series of new flirtations, each more unseemly than its predecessor, as it seemed to Lady Tranmore. Afterwards—during the general election—a political phase! Kitty had most unfortunately discovered that she could speak in public, and had fallen in love with the sound of her own voice. In Ashe's own contest, her sallies and indiscretions had already begun to do mischief when Lady Tranmore had succeeded in enticing her to London by the bait of a French clairvoyante, with whom Kitty nightly tempted the gods who keep watch over the secrets of fate—till William's poll had been declared.
All this was deplorably true. And yet no one could say that Kitty in this checkered year had done her husband much harm. Ashe was no longer her blind slave; and his career had carried him to heights with which even his mother might have been satisfied. Sometimes Margaret was inclined to think that Kitty had now less influence with him and his mother more than was the just due of each. She—the younger woman—felt the tragedy of Ashe's new and growing emancipation. Secretly—often—she sided with Kitty!
"Margaret!"
The voice was Kitty's. She came running out, her pale-pink skirts flying round her. "Have you seen the babe?"
Margaret replied that he and his nurse were just in sight.
Kitty fled over the lawn to meet the child's perambulator. She lifted him out, and carried him in her arms towards Margaret and Lady Tranmore.
"Isn't it piteous?" said Margaret, under her breath, as the mother and child approached. Lady Tranmore gave her a sad, assenting look.
For during the last six months the child had shown signs of brain mischief—a curious apathy, broken now and then by fits of temper. The doctors were not encouraging. And Kitty varied between the most passionate attempts to rouse the child's failing intelligence and days—even weeks—when she could hardly bring herself to see him at all.
She brought him now to a seat beside Lady Tranmore. She had been trying to make him take notice of a new toy. But the child looked at her with blank and glassy eyes, and the toy fell from his hand.