Darrell looked up.
"You know, Lady Kitty, that book can't be published like that. Nobody would risk it."
"Well, I suppose they'll tell me what to cut out."
"Yes," said Darrell, slowly, caught by many reflections—"no doubt some clever fellow will know how near the wind it's possible to sail. But, anyway, trim it as you like, the book will make a scandal."
"Will it?" Kitty's eyes flashed. She sat up radiant, her breath quick and defiant.
"I don't see," he resumed, "how you can publish it without consulting Ashe."
Kitty gave a cry of protest.
"No, no, no! Of course he'd disapprove. But then—he soon forgives a thing, if he thinks it clever. And it is clever, isn't it?—some of it. He'd laugh—and then it would be all right. He'd never pay out his enemies, but he couldn't help enjoying it if some one else did—could he?" She pleaded like a child.
"'No need to forgive them,'" murmured Darrell, as he rolled over on his back and put his hat over his eyes—"for you would have 'shot them all.'"
Under the shelter of his hat he tried to think himself clear. What really were her motives? Partly, no doubt, a childish love of excitement—partly revenge? The animus against the Parhams was clear in every page. Cliffe, too, came badly out of it—a fantastic Byronic mixture of libertine and cad. Lady Kitty had better beware! As far as he knew, Cliffe had never yet been struck, with impunity to the striker.