Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/810

750 her small hands together, "how I love you!—love you!"

Meanwhile Darrell and Harman stood side by side near the doorway of the ballroom, looking in when the crowd allowed.

"A strange sight," said Harman. "Perhaps they take it too seriously."

"Ah! that is our English upper class," said Darrell, with a sneer. "Is there anything they take lightly?—par example! It seems to me they carry off this amusement better than most. They may be stupid, but they are good-looking! I say, Ashe"—he turned towards the newcomer who had just sauntered up to them,—"on this exceptional occasion is it allowed to congratulate you on Lady Kitty's gown?"

For Kitty, raised upon her step, was at the moment in full view.

Ashe made some slight reply, the slightness of which indeed annoyed the thin-skinned and morbid Darrell, always on the lookout for affronts. But Louis Harman, who happened to observe the Under-Secretary's glance at his wife, said to himself, "By George! that queer marriage is turning out well, after all!"

The Tudor and Marie Antoinette quadrilles had been danced. There was a rumor of supper in the air.

"William!" said Kitty, in his ear, as she came across him in one of the drawing-rooms, "Lord Hubert takes me in to supper. Poor me!" She made an extravagant face of self-pity and swept on. Lord Hubert was one of the sons of the house,—a stupid and inarticulate Guardsman, Kitty's butt and detestation. Ashe smiled to himself over her fate, and went back to the ballroom in search of his own lady.

Meanwhile Kitty paused in the next drawing-room, and dismissed her following.

"I promised to wait here for Lord Hubert," she said. "You go on, or you'll get no tables!"

And she waved them peremptorily away. The drawing-room, one of a suite which looked on the garden, thinned temporarily. In a happy fatigue, Kitty leant dreamily over the ledge of one of the open windows, looking at the illuminated space below her. Amid the colored lights figures of dream and fantasy walked up and down. In the midst flashed a flame-colored fountain. The sounds of a Strauss waltz floated in the air. And beyond the garden and its trees rose the dull roar of London.

A silk curtain floated out into the room, under the westerly breeze; then, returning, sheathed Kitty in its folds. She stood there hidden, amusing herself like a child with the thought of startling that great heavy goose Lord Hubert.

Suddenly a pair of voices that she knew caught her ear. Two persons, passing through, lingered, without perceiving her. Kitty, after a first movement of self-disclosure, caught her own name and stood motionless.

"Well, of course you've heard that we got through," said Lady Parham. "For once Lady Kitty behaved herself!"

"You were lucky!" said Mary Lyster. "Lady Tranmore was dreadfully anxious—"

"Lest she should cut us at the last?" cried Lady Parham. "Well, of course, Lady Kitty is 'capable de tout. She laughed. "But perhaps as you are a cousin I oughtn't to say these things."

"Oh! say what you like!" said Mary. "I am no friend of Kitty's and never pretended to be!"

Lady Parham came closer, apparently, and said confidentially: "What on earth made that man marry her? He might have married anybody. She had no money, and worse than no position."

"She worked upon his pity, of course, a good deal. I saw them in the early days at Grosville Park. She played her cards very cleverly. And then it was just the right moment. Lady Tranmore had been urging him to marry."

"Well, of course," said Lady Parham, "there's no denying the beauty."

"You think so?" said Mary, as though in wonder. "Well, I never could see it. And now she has so much gone off."

"I don't agree with you. Many people think her the star to-night. Mr. Cliffe, I am told, admires her."

Kitty could not see how the small ferret eyes of the speaker, under a Sir Joshua turban, studied the countenance of Miss Lyster as she threw out the words. Mary laughed.

"Poor Kitty! She tried to flirt with