Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/476

436 "Or government by country houses—which? If you support us in this—as I gather you will—this walk will have been worth a debate,—now won't it?"

The flattered journalist smiled, and they entered the house. From the inner hall Lord Grosville perceived them.

"Geoffrey Cliffe's arrived," he said to Ashe, as they reached him.

"Has he?" said Ashe, and turned to go up-stairs.

But Kershaw showed a lively interest. "You mean the traveller?" he asked of his host.

"I do. As mad as usual," said the old man. "He and my niece Kitty make a pair."

HEN Ashe returned to the drawing-room he found it filled with the sound of talk and laughter. But it was a talk and laughter in which the Grosville family seemed to have itself but little part. Lady Grosville sat stiffly on an Early-Victorian sofa, her spectacles on her nose, reading the Times of the preceding day, or appearing to read it. Amy Grosville, the eldest girl, was busy in a corner, putting the finishing touches to a piece of illumination; while Caroline, seated on the floor, was showing the small child of a neighbor how to put a picture puzzle together. Lord Grosville was professedly in a farther room, talking with the Austrian Count. But every other minute he strolled restlessly into the big drawing-room, and stood at the edge of the talk and laughter, only to turn on his heel again and go back to the Count,—who meanwhile appeared in the opening between the two rooms, his hands on his hips, eagerly watching Kitty Bristol and her companions, while waiting, as courtesy bade him, for the return of his host.

Ashe at once divined that the Grosville family were in revolt. Nor had he to look far to discover the cause.

Was that astonishing young lady in truth identical with the pensive figure of the morning? Kitty had doffed her black, and she wore a "demi-toilette" gown of the utmost elegance, of which the expensiveness had, no doubt, already sunk deep into Lady Grosville's soul. At Grosville Park the new fashion of "tea-gowns" was not favorably regarded. It was thought to be a mere device of silly and extravagant women, and an "afternoon dress," though of greater pretensions than a morning gown, was still a sober affair, not in any way to be confounded with those decorative effects that nature and sound sense reserved for the evening.

But Kitty's dress was of some white silky material; and it displayed her slender throat and some portion of her thin white arms. The Dean's wife, Mrs. Winston, as she secretly studied it, felt an inward satisfaction; for here at last was one of those gowns she had once or twice gazed on with a covetous awe in the shop-windows of the Rue de la Paix, brought down to earth, and clothing a simple mortal. They were then real, and they could be worn by real women; which till now the Dean's wife had scarcely believed.

Alack! how becoming were these concoctions to minxes with fair hair and sylphlike frames! Kitty was radiant, triumphant; and Ashe was certain that Lady Grosville knew it, however she might barricade herself behind the Times. The girl's slim fingers gesticulated in aid of her tongue; one tiny foot swung lightly over the other; the glistening folds of the silk wrapped her in a shimmering whiteness, above which the fair head—negligently thrown back—shone out on a red background, made by the velvet chair in which she sat.

The Dean was placed close beside her and was clearly enjoying himself enormously. And in front of her, absorbed in her, engaged, indeed, in hot and furious debate with her, stood the great man who had just arrived.

"How do you do, Cliffe?" said Ashe as he approached.

Geoffrey Cliffe turned sharply; and a perfunctory greeting passed between the two men.

"When did you arrive?" said Ashe as he threw himself into an armchair.

"Last Tuesday. But that don't matter," said Cliffe, impatiently,—"nothing matters—except that I must somehow defeat Lady Kitty!"

And he stood looking down upon the girl in front of him, his hands on his sides, his queer countenance twitching with suppressed laughter. An odd fig-