the watch, like some starved faculty that cannot find its outlet. The thought of this beautiful child in the hands of such a mother as Madame d'Estrées, and rushing upon risks illustrated by the half-mocking attentions of Geoffrey Cliffe, did in truth wring his heart. With a strange imaginative clearness he foresaw her future, he beheld her the prey at once of some bad fellow and of her own temperament. She would come to grief; he saw the prescience of it in her already; and what a waste would be there!
No! he would step in,—capture her before these ways and whims, now merely bizarre or foolish, stiffened into what might in truth destroy her. His pulse quickened as he thought of the development of this beauty, the ripening of this intelligence. Never yet had he seen a girl whom he much wished to marry. He was easily repelled by stupidity, still more by mere amiability. Some touch of acid, of roughness in the fruit,—that drew him, in politics, thought, love. And, if she married him, he vowed to himself, proudly, that she would find him no tyrant. Many a man might marry her, who would then fight her and try to break her. All that was most fastidious and characteristic in Ashe revolted from such a notion. With him she should have freedom,—whatever it might cost. He asked himself deliberately whether after marriage he could see her flirting with other men, as she had flirted that day with Cliffe, and still refrain from coercing her. And his question was answered first by the confidence of nascent love,—he would love her so well and so royally that she would naturally turn to him for counsel; and then by the clear perception that she was a creature of mind rather than sense, governed mainly by the caprices and curiosities of the intelligence. Ungoverned imagination, combined with a rather cold indifferent temperament—he read her so. One moment throwing herself wildly into a dangerous or exciting intimacy; the next, parting with a laugh and without a regret,—it was thus he saw her in the future, even as a wife. "She may scandalize half the world," he said to himself stubbornly,—"I shall understand her!"
But his mother? his friends? his colleagues? He knew well his mother's ambitions for him, and the place that he held in her heart. Could he without cruelty impose upon her such a daughter as Kitty Bristol? Well!—his mother had a very large experience of life, and much natural independence of mind. He trusted her to see the promise in this untamed and gifted creature; he counted on the sense of power that Lady Tranmore possessed, and which would but find new scope in the taming of Kitty.
But Kitty's mother? Here, too, however, Ashe's easy-goingness made sure of a solution. Kitty must, of course, be rescued from Madame d'Estrées,—must find a new and truer mother in Lady Tranmore. Money would do it; and money must be lavished.
Then, almost for the first time, Ashe felt a conscious delight in wealth and birth. Panache? He could give it her—the little, wild, lovely thing! Luxury, society, adoration,—all should be hers. She should be so loved and cherished, she must needs love in return.
His dreams were delicious; and the sudden fear into which he fell at the end lest after all Kitty should mock and turn from him was only in truth another pleasure. No delay! Circumstances might develop at any moment and sweep her from him. Now or never must he snatch her from difficulty and disgrace—let hostile tongues wag as they pleased—and make her his.
His political future? He knew well the influence which, in these days of universal publicity, a man's private affairs may have on his public career. And in truth his heart was in that career, and the thought of endangering it hurt him. Certainly it would recommend him to nobody that he should marry Madame d'Estrées' daughter. On the other hand, what favor did he want of anybody?—save what work and "knowing more than the other fellows" might compel? The cynic in him was well aware that he had already what other men fought for—family, money, and position. Society must accept his wife; and Kitty, once mellowed by happiness and praise, might live, laugh, and rattle as she pleased.
As for strangeness and caprice, the modern world delights in them; "the violent take it by force." There is indeed a
