At dinner he found himself responsible for Mary Lyster. Kitty was on the other side of the table, widely separated both from himself and Cliffe. She was in a little Empire dress of blue and silver, as extravagantly simple as her gown of the afternoon had been extravagantly elaborate.
Ashe observed the furtive study that the Grosville girls could not help bestowing upon her—upon her shoulder-straps and long, bare arms, upon her high waist and the blue and silver bands in her hair. Kitty herself sat in a pensive or proud silence. The Dean was beside her, but she scarcely spoke to him, and as to the young man from the neighborhood who had taken her in, he was to her as though he were not.
"Has there been a row?" Ashe inquired, in a low voice, of his companion.
Mary looked at him quietly.
"Lord Grosville asked them not to play—because of the servants."
"Good!" said Ashe. "The servants were, of course, playing cards in the house-keeper's room."
"Not at all. They were singing hymns with Lady Grosville."
Ashe looked incredulous.
"Only the slaveys and scullery maids that couldn't help themselves. Never mind. Was Lady Kitty amenable?"
"She seems to have made Lord Grosville very angry. Lady Grosville and I smoothed him down."