Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/484

442 "I had rather have seen him angrier," said the Dean, slowly.

"He was always a very tolerant, easy-going fellow."

The Dean shook his head.

"A touch of sœva indignatio now and then would complete him."

"Has he got it in him?"

"Perhaps not," said the little Dean, with a flash of expression that dignified all his frail person. "But without it he will hardly make a great man."

Meanwhile Geoffrey Cliffe, his strange twisted face still vindictively aglow, made his way to Kitty Bristol's corner in the drawing-room. Mary Lyster was conscious of it; conscious also of a certain look that Kitty bestowed upon the entrance of Ashe, while Cliffe was opening a battery of mingled chaff and compliments that did not at first have much effect upon her. But William Ashe threw himself into conversation with Lady Edith Manley, and was presently to all appearance happily plunged in gossip, his tall person wholly at ease in a deep armchair, while Lady Edith bent over him with smiles. Meanwhile there was a certain desertion of Kitty on the part of the ladies. Lady Grosville hardly spoke to her, and the girls markedly avoided her. There was a moment when Kitty, looking round her, suddenly shook her small shoulders, and like a colt escaping from harness gave herself to riot. She and Cliffe amused themselves so well and so noisily that the whole drawing-room was presently uneasily aware of them. Lady Grosville shot glances of wrath, rose suddenly at one moment and sat down again; her girls talked more disjointedly than ever to the gentlemen who were civilly attending them; while on the other hand Miss Lyster's flow of conversation with Louis Harman was more softly copious than usual. At last the Dean's wife looked at the Dean, a signal of kind distress, and the Dean advanced.

"Lady Kitty," he said, taking a seat beside the pair, "have you forgotten you promised me some French?"

Kitty turned on him a hot and mutinous face. "Did I? What shall I say? Some Alfred de Musset?"

"No—" said the Dean. "I think not."

"Some—some—" she cudgelled her memory—"some Théophile Gautier?"

"No, certainly not!" said the Dean, hastily.

"Well, as I don't know a word of him—" laughed Kitty.

"That was mischievous," said the Dean, raising a finger. "Let me suggest Lamartine!"

Kitty shook her head obstinately. "I never learnt one line!"

"Then some of the old fellows," said the Dean, persuasively. "I long to hear you in Corneille or Racine. That we should all enjoy."

And suddenly his wrinkled hand fell kindly on the girl's small, chilly fingers and patted them. Their eyes met, Kitty's wild and challenging, the Dean's full of that ethereal benevolence which blended so agreeably with his character as courtier and man of the world. There was a bright sweetness in them which seemed to say: "Poor child! I understand. But be a little good,—as well as clever—and all will be well."

Suddenly Kitty's look wavered and fell. All the harshness dissolved from her thin young beauty. She turned from Cliffe, and the Dean saw her quiver with submission.

"I think I could say some Polyeucte," she said, gently.

The Dean clapped his hands and rose.

"Lady Grosville," he said, raising his voice—"ladies and gentlemen, Lady Kitty has promised to say us some more French poetry. You remember how admirably she recited last night. But this is Sunday, and she will give us something in a different vein."

Lady Grosville, who had risen impatiently, sat down again. There was a general movement; chairs were turned or drawn forward, till a circle formed. Meanwhile the Dean consulted with Kitty and resumed:

"Lady Kitty will recite a scene from Corneille's beautiful tragedy of Polyeucte—the scene in winch Pauline, after witnessing the martyrdom of her husband, who has been beheaded for refusing to sacrifice to the gods, returns from the place of execution so melted by the love and sacrifice she has beheld, that she opens her heart then and there to the same august faith and pleads for the same death."

The Dean seated himself, and Kitty