Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/237

Rh "It is too beautiful!" she said, with an effort—almost an angry effort. "I don't want to see it again."

"I thought it would give you pleasure," said Ashe, gently, suddenly conscious of a hope that she was not aware of the slight look of amusement with which Mary Lyster was contemplating them both.

"So it did," said Kitty, furtively applying her lace handkerchief to her tears, "but"—her voice dropped—"when one's unhappy, very unhappy, things like that—things like heaven—hurt! Oh! what a fool I am!" And she sat straightly up, looking round her.

There was a pause; then Ashe said, in another voice:

"Look here; you know, this won't do. I thought we were to be cousins."

"Well?" said Kitty, indifferently, not looking at him.

"And I understood that I was to be taken into respectable cousinly counsel."

"Well?" said Kitty again, crumbling her bread; "I can't do it here, can I?"

Ashe laughed.

"Well, anyhow, we're going to sample the garden to-morrow morning, aren't we?"

"I suppose so," said Kitty. Then after a moment she looked at her right-hand neighbor, the young politician, to whom as yet she had scarcely vouchsafed a word.

"What's his name?" she asked, under her breath. Ashe repeated it.

"Perhaps I ought to talk to him?"

"Of course you ought," said Ashe, with smiling decision, and turning to the lady whom he had brought in, he left her free.

When the ladies rose, Lady Grosville led the way to the large drawing-room, a room which, like the library, had some character and a thin elegance of style, not, however, warmed and harmonized by the delightful presence of books. The walls, blue and white in color, were panelled in stucco relief. A few family portraits, stiff handlings of stiff people, were placed each in the exact centre of its respective panel. There were a few cases of china, and a few polished tables. A crimson Brussels carpet, chosen by Lady Grosville for its "cheerfulness," covered the floor, and there was a large white sheepskin rug before the fireplace. A few hyacinths in pots and the bright fire supplied the only gay and living notes—before the ladies arrived.

Still, for an English eye the room had a certain cold charm—was, moreover, full of history. It hardly deserved, at any rate, the shiver with which Kitty Bristol looked round it.

But she had little time to dwell upon the room and its meanings, for Lady Grosville approached her with a manner which still showed signs of the catastrophe before dinner.

"Kitty, I think you don't know Miss Lyster yet—Mary Lyster. She wants to be introduced to you."

Mary advanced, smiling; Kitty held out a limp hand, and they exchanged a few words, standing in the centre of the floor, while the other guests found seats.

"What a charming contrast!" said Lady Edith Manley in Lady Grosville's ear. She nodded, smiling, towards the standing pair, struck by the fine straight lines of Mary's satin dress, the roundness of her fine figure, the oval of her head and face, and then by the little, vibrating, tempestuous creature beside her, so distinguished in spite of the billowing flounces and ribbons, so direct and significant amid all the elaboration.

"Kitty is ridiculously overdressed," said Lady Grosville. "I hope we shall soon change that. My girls are going to take her to their woman."

Lady Edith put up her eye-glass slowly, and looked at the two Grosville girls; then back at Kitty.

Meanwhile a few perfunctory questions and answers were passing between Miss Lyster and her companion. Mary's aspect as she talked was extremely amiable; one might have called it indulgent, perhaps even by an adjective that implied a yet further shade of delicate superiority. Kitty met it by the same "grand manner" that Ashe had several times observed in her—a manner caught, perhaps, from some French model, and caricatured in the taking. Her eyes meanwhile took note of Mary's face and dress, and while she listened her small teeth tormented her under lip, as though she restrained impatience. All at once, in the midst of some information that Miss Lyster was lucidly giving, Kitty