Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/645

Rh met with those of Cliffe. Cliffe paused, abruptly lost the thread of his conversation with Mr. Loraine, and began to make his way through the crowded room. Lady Tranmore watched his progress with some attention. It was the progress, clearly, of a man much in the eye and mouth of the public. Whether the atmosphere surrounding him in these rooms was more hostile, or more favorable, Lady Tranmore could not be quite sure. Certainly the women smiled upon him; and his strange face, thinner, browner, more weather-beaten and life-beaten than ever, under its coat of grizzling hair, had the old arrogant and picturesque power, but, as it seemed to her, with something added,—something subtler, was it, more romantic than of yore?—which arrested the spectator. Had he really been in love with that Frenchwoman? Lady Tranmore had heard it rumored that she was dead.

It was not towards Mary Lyster, primarily, that he was moving, Elizabeth soon discovered; it was towards herself. She braced herself for the encounter.

The greeting was soon over. After she herself had said the appropriate things, Lady Tranmore had time to notice that Mary Lyster, whose turn came next, did not attempt to say them. She looked, indeed, unusually handsome and animated; Lady Tranmore was certain that Cliffe had noticed as much at his first sight of her. But the remarks she omitted showed how minute and recent was their knowledge of each other's movements. Cliffe himself gave a first impression of high spirits. He declared that London was more agreeable than he had ever known it, and that after his three years' absence nobody looked a day older. Then he inquired after Ashe.

Lady Tranmore replied that William was well, but hard worked; she hoped to persuade him to get a few days abroad at Whitsuntide. Her manner was quiet, without a trace of either discourtesy or effusion. Cliffe began to twist his mustache—a sign she knew well. It meant that he was in truth both irritable and nervous.

"You think they'll last till Whitsuntide?"

"The government?" she said, smiling. "Certainly—and beyond."

"I give them three weeks," said Cliffe, twisting anew, with a vigor that gave her a positive physical sympathy with the tortured mustache. "There will be some papers out to-morrow that will be a bombshell."

"About America? Oh! they have been blown up so often. You, for instance, have been doing your best—for months!"

His perfunctory laugh answered the mockery of her charming eyes.

"Well—I wish I could make William hear reason."

Lady Tranmore held herself stiffly. The Christian name seemed to her an offence. It was true that in old days he and Cliffe had been on those terms. Now—it was a piece of bad taste.

"Probably what is reason to you is folly to him," she said, dryly.

"No, no!—he knows," said Cliffe, with impatience. "The others don't. Parham is more impossible—more crassly, grossly ignorant!" He lifted hands and eyes in protest. "But Ashe, of course, is another matter altogether."

"Well, go and see him—go and talk to him!" said Lady Tranmore, still mocking. "There are no lions in the way."

"None," said Cliffe. "As a matter of fact, Lady Kitty has asked me to luncheon. But does one find Ashe himself in the middle of the day?"

At the mention of her daughter-in-law, Elizabeth made an involuntary movement. Mary, standing beside her, turned towards her and smiled.

"Not often." The tone was cold. "But you could always find him at the House." And Lady Tranmore moved away.

"Is there a quiet corner anywhere?" said Cliffe to Mary. "I have such heaps to tell you."

So while some Polish gentleman in the main drawing-room, whose name ended in ski, challenged his violin to the impossible, Cliffe and Mary retired from observation into a small room thrown open with the rest of the suite, which was in truth the morning-room of the ambassadress.

As soon as they found themselves alone, there was a pause in their conversation; each involuntarily looked at the other. Mary certainly recognized