"Because I was much better employed. I have given up crushes. But I would have come—to meet you. Ah! Mr. Darrell!" she added, in another tone, holding out an indifferent hand,—"where is Kitty?" She looked round her.
"Shall we order lunch?" said Darrell, who had given her a greeting as careless as her own.
"Kitty is really too bad; she is never less than an hour late," said Mrs. Alcot, seating herself. "Last time she dined with us I asked her for 7.30. She thought something very special must be happening, and arrived—breathless—at half past eight. Then she was furious with me because she was not the last. But one can't do it twice. Well"—addressing herself to Cliffe,—"are you come home to stay?"
"That depends," said Cliffe, "on whether England makes itself agreeable to me."
"What are your deserts? Why should England be agreeable to you?" she replied, with a smiling sharpness. "You do nothing but croak about England."
Thus challenged, Cliffe sat down beside her, and they fell into a bantering conversation. Darrell, though inwardly wounded by the small trouble they took to include him, let nothing appear, put in a word now and then, or turned over the pages of the illustrated books.
After five minutes a fresh guest arrived. In walked the little Dean, Dr. Winston, who had originally made acquaintance with Lady Kitty at Grosville Park. He came in overflowing with spirits and enthusiasm. He had been spending the morning in Westminster Abbey with another Dean more famous though not more charming than himself, and with yet another congenial spirit, one of the younger historians,—all of them passionate lovers of the rich human detail of the past, the actual men and women, kings, queens, bishops, executioners, and all the shreds and tatters that remained of them. Together they had opened a royal tomb, and the Dean's eyes were sparkling as though the ghost of the queen whose ashes he had been handling still walked and talked with him.
He passed in his light disinterested way through most sections of English society, though the slave of none; and he greeted Darrell and Mrs. Alcot as acquaintances. Mrs. Alcot introduced Cliffe to him, and the small Dean bowed rather stiffly. He was a supporter of the government, and he thought Cliffe's campaign against them vulgar and unfair.
"Is there no hope of Lady Kitty?" he said to Mrs. Alcot.
"Not much. Shall we go down to lunch?"
"Without our hostess?" The Dean opened his eyes.
"Oh! Kitty expects it," said Mrs. Alcot, with affected resignation—"and the servants are quite prepared. Kitty asks everybody to lunch—and then somebody asks her—and she forgets. It's quite simple."
"Quite," said Cliffe, buttoning up his coat,—"but I think I shall go to the club."
He was looking for his hat, when again there was a commotion on the stairs—a high voice giving orders—and in burst Kitty. She stood still as soon as she saw her guests, talking so fast and pouring out such a flood of excuses that no one could get in a word. Then she flew to each guest in turn, taking them by both hands,—Darrell only excepted,—and showing herself so penitent, amusing, and charming that everybody was propitiated. It was Fanchette, of course—Fanchette the criminal, the incomparable. Her dress for the ball!—Kitty raised eyes and hands to heaven—it would be a marvel, a miracle! Unless indeed she were lying cold and quiet in her little grave before the time came to wear it. But Fanchette's tempers—Fanchette's caprices!—no! Kitty began to mimic the great dressmaker torn to pieces by the crowd of fashionable ladies,—stopping abruptly in the middle to say to Cliffe,
"You were going away?—I saw you take up your hat."
"I despaired of my hostess," said Cliffe, with a smile. Then, as he perceived that Mrs. Alcot had taken up the theme and was holding the others in play, he added in a lower voice, "And I was in no mood for second-best."
Kitty's eyes twinkled a moment as she turned them on Madeleine Alcot.
"Ah! I remember—at Grosville Park
