Page:Harper's New Monthly Magazine - v109.djvu/488

"Some nonsense, wasn't it? But I should be bored by the domestic dove. I want the hawk, Kitty, with its quick wings and its daring bright eyes."

She broke from him with a cry.

"You must listen. I have—a wicked, odious, ungovernable temper—I should make you miserable."

"Not at all," said Ashe. "I should take it very calmly. I am made that way."

"And then—I don't know how to put it—but I have fancies—overpowering fancies—and I must follow them. I have one now for Geoffrey Cliffe!"

Ashe laughed.

"Oh, that won't last."

"Then some other will come after it. And I can't help it. It is my head"—she tapped her forehead lightly—"that seems on fire."

Ashe at last slipped his arm round her.

"But it is your heart—you will give me."

She pushed him away from her and held him at arm's length.

"You are very rich, aren't you?" she said, in a muffled voice.

"I am well off. I can give you all the pretty things you want."

"And some day you will be Lord Tranmore?"

"Yes, when my poor father dies," he said, sighing. He felt her fingers caress his hand again. It was a spirit touch, light and tender.

"And every one says you are so clever—you have such prospects. Perhaps you will be Prime Minister."

"Well, there's no saying," he threw out, laughing,—"if you'll come and help."

He heard a sob.

"Help! I should be the ruin of you. I should spoil everything. You don't know the mischief I can do. And I can't help it; it's in my blood."

"You would like the game of politics too much to spoil it, Kitty." His voice broke and lingered on the name. "You would want to be a great lady and lead the party."

"Should I? Could you ever teach me how to behave?"

"You would learn by nature. Do you know, Kitty, how clever you are?"

"Yes," she sighed. "I am clever. But there is always something that hinders—that brings failure."

"How old are you ?" he said, laughing. "Eighteen—or eighty?"

Suddenly he put out his arms, enfolding her. And she, still sobbing, raised her hands, clasped them round his neck, and clung to him like a child.

"Oh! I knew—I knew—when I first saw your face. I had been so miserable all day—and then you looked at me—and I wanted to tell you all. Oh, I adore you—I adore you!"

Their faces met. Ashe tasted a moment of rapture; and knew himself free at last of the great company of poets and of lovers.

They slipped back to the house, and Ashe saw her disappear by a door on the farther side of the orangery,—noiselessly, without a sound. Except that just at the last she drew him to her and breathed a scared whisper in his ear—

"Oh! what—what will Lady Tranmore say?"

Then she fled. But she left her question behind her, and when the dawn came, Ashe found that he had spent half the night in trying anew to frame some sort of an answer to it.

[to be continued.]