Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/805

Rh splendors, and she rose smiling as Ashe entered the room.

"A parcel of idiots, nurse, aren't we?" he said, as he, too, displayed himself, and then he followed Kitty to the child's bedside. She bent over the baby, removed a corner of the cot-blanket that might tease his cheek, touched the mottled hand softly, removed a light that seemed to her too near—and still stood looking.

"We must go, Kitty."

"I wish he were a little older," she said, discontentedly, under her breath, "that he might wake up and see us both! I should like him to remember me like this."

"Queen and huntress, come away!" said Ashe, drawing her by the hand.

Outside, the landing was dimly lighted. The servants were all waiting in the hall below.

"Kitty!" said Ashe, passionately. "Give me one kiss. You're so sweet to-night—so sweet!"

She turned.

"Take care of my dress!" she smiled, and then she held out her face under its sparkling crescent, held it with a dainty deliberation, and let her lips cling to his.

Ashe and Kitty were soon wedged into one of the interminable lines of carriages that blocked all the approaches to St. James's Square. The ball had been long expected, and there was a crowd in the streets, kept back by the police. The brougham went at a foot's pace, and there was ample time either for reverie or conversation. Kitty looked out incessantly, exclaiming when she caught sight of a costume or an acquaintance. Ashe had time to think over the latest phase of the negotiations with America, and to go over in his mind the sentences of a letter he had addressed to the Times in answer to one of great violence from Geoffrey Cliffe. His own letter had appeared that morning. Ashe was proud of it. He made bold to think that it exposed Cliffe's exaggerations and insincerities neatly, and perhaps decisively. At any rate he hummed a cheerful tune as he thought of it.

Then suddenly and incongruously a recollection occurred to him.

"Kitty! do you know that I had a letter from your mother, this morning?"

"Had you?" said Kitty, turning to him with reluctance. "I suppose she wanted some money."

"She did. She says she is very hard up. If I cared to use it, I have an easy reply."

"What do you mean?"

"I might say, dn it, we are too!" Kitty laughed uneasily.

"Don't begin to talk money matters now, William, please."

"No, dear, I won't. But we shall really have to draw in."

"You will pay so many debts!" said Kitty, frowning.

Ashe went into a fit of laughter.

"That's my extravagance, isn't it? I assure you I go on the most approved principles. I divide our available money among the greatest number of hungry claimants it will stretch to. But after all it goes a beggarly short way."

"I know mother will think my diamond crescent a horrible extravagance," said Kitty, pouting. "But you are the only son, William, and we must behave like other people."

"Dear, don't trouble your little head," he said; "I'll manage it somehow."

Indeed, he knew very well that he could never bring his own indolent and easygoing temper in such matters to face any real struggle with Kitty over money. He must go to his mother, who now—his father being a hopeless invalid—managed the estates, with his own and the agent's help. It was, of course, right that she should preach to Kitty a little; but she would be sensible and help them Out. After all, there was plenty of money. Why shouldn't Kitty spend it?

Any one who knew him well might have observed a curious contrast between his private laxity in these matters and the strictness of his public practice. He was scruple and delicacy itself in all financial matters that touched his public life—directorships, investments, and the like, no less than in all that concerned interest and patronage. He would have been a bold man who had dared to propose to William Ashe any expedient whatever by which his public place might serve his private gain. His proud and fastidious integrity, indeed, was one of the sources of his growing power. But as to private debts—and the tradesmen