They met on the threshold of the child's room, she coming out, he going in. But she wrenched herself from him and would say nothing. The report of the little boy was good; he smiled at his father, and Ashe felt a cooling balm in the touch of his soft hands and lips. He descended—in a more philosophical mind; inclined, at any rate, to "damn" Lord Parham. What a fool the man must be! Why couldn't he have taken it with a laugh, and so turned the tables on Kitty?
Was there any good to be got out of apologizing? Ashe supposed he must attempt it some time that night. A precious awkward business! But relations had got to be restored somehow.
Lady Tranmore overtook him on the way down-stairs. In the press of the afternoon they had hardly seen each other.
"What is really wrong with Lord Parham, William?" she asked him, anxiously. Ashe hesitated, then whispered a word or two in her ear, begging her to keep the great man in play for the evening. He was to take her in, while Kitty would fall to the Bishop of the diocese.
"She gets on perfectly with the clergy," said Lady Tranmore, with an involuntary sigh. Then, as the sense of humor was strong in both, they laughed. But it was a chilly and perfunctory laughter.
They had no sooner passed into the main hall than Kitty came running down-stairs, with a large packet in her hand.
"Mr. Darrell!"
"At your service!" said Darrell, emerging from the shadows of one of the broad corridors of the ground-*floor.
"Take it, please!" said Kitty, panting a little, as she gave the packet into his hands. "If I look at it any more, I might burn it!"
"Suppose you do!"