Kitty ceased to laugh. She drew herself up, and looked seriously, observantly at her aunt.
"I don't know. But I must do it somehow. I don't want any more worries."
So changed was her tone and aspect that Ashe turned a friendly examining look upon her.
"Have you been worried?" he said, in a lower voice.
She shrugged her shoulders, and made no reply. But presently she impatiently reclaimed his attention, snatching him from the lady he had taken in to dinner, with no scruple at all.
"Will you come a walk with me to-morrow morning?"
"Proud," said Ashe. "What time?"
"As soon as we can get rid of these people," she said, her eye running round the table. Then as it paused and lingered on the face of Mary Lyster opposite, she abruptly asked him who that lady might be.
Ashe informed her.
"Your cousin?" she said, looking at him with a slight frown. "I don't—well, I don't think I shall like her."
"That's a great pity," said Ashe.
"For me?" she said, distrustfully.
"For both, of course! My mother's very fond of Miss Lyster. She's often with us."
"Oh!" said Kitty, and looked again at the face opposite. Then he heard her say, behind her fan, half to herself and half to him:
"She does not interest me in the least! She has no ideas! I'm sure she has no ideas. Has she?"
She turned abruptly to Ashe.
"Every one calls her very clever."
Kitty looked contempt.
"That's nothing to do with it. It's not the clever people who have ideas."
Ashe bantered her a little on the meaning of her words, till he presently found that she was too young and unpractised to be able to take his thrusts and return them, with equanimity. She could make a daring sally or reply, but it was still the raw material of conversation; it wanted ease and polish. And she was evidently conscious of it herself, for presently her cheek flushed and her manner wavered.
"I suppose you—everybody thinks her very agreeable?" she said, sharply, her eyes returning to Miss Lyster.
"She is a most excellent gossip," said Ashe. "I always go to her for the news."
Kitty glanced again.
"I can see that already she detests me."
"In half an hour?"
The girl nodded.
"She has looked at me twice—about. But she has made up her mind—and she never changes." Then with an abrupt alteration of note she looked round the room. "I suppose your English dining-rooms are all like this? One might be sitting in a hearse. And the pictures—no! Quelles horreurs!"
She raised her shoulders again impetuously, frowning at a huge full-length opposite, of Lord Grosville as M. F. H.,—a masterpiece, indeed, of early Victorian vulgarity.
Then suddenly, hastily, with that flashing softness which so often transformed her expression, she turned towards him, trying to make amends.
"But the library, that was bien—ah! tr-rès, tr-rès bien!"
Her r's rolled a little as she spoke, with a charming effect, and she looked at him radiantly, as though to strike and to make amends were equally her prerogative, and she asked no man's leave.
"You've not yet seen what there is to see here," said Ashe, smiling. "Look behind you."
The girl turned her slim neck, and exclaimed. For behind Ashe's chair was the treasure of the house. It was a "Dance of Children," by one of the most famous of the eighteenth-century masters. From the dark wall it shone out with a flowerlike brilliance, a vision of color and of grace. The children danced through a golden air, their bodies swaying to one of those "unheard melodies" of art, sweeter than all mortal tunes, their delicate faces alive with joy. The sky and grass and trees seemed to caress them; a soft sunlight clothed them; and flowers brushed their feet.
Kitty turned back again, and was silent. Was it Ashe's fancy, or had she grown pale?
"Did you like it?" he asked her. She turned to him, and for the second time in their acquaintance he saw her eyes floating in tears.
