r an old shoe, either to
Kitty or me."

"She can be a most bitter enemy, William. And she certainly influences
Lord Parham."

Ashe smoked and smiled. Lady Tranmore saw that his pride, too, had been
aroused, and that here he was likely to prove as obstinate as Kitty.

"I wish I could get her out of my mind!" she sighed.

Ashe glanced at her kindly.

"I daresay we shall hold our own. Xanthippe is not beloved, and I don't
believe Parham will let her interfere with what he thinks best for the
party. Will it pay to put me in the cabinet or not?--that's what he'll
ask. I shall be strongly backed, too, by most of our papers."

A number of thoughts ran through Lady Tranmore's brain. With her long
experience of London, she knew well what the sudden lowering of a man's
"consideration"--to use a French word--at a critical moment may mean. A
cooling of the general regard--a breath of detraction coming no one
knows whence--and how soon new claims emerge, and the indispensable of
yesterday becomes the negligible of to-day!

But even if she could have brought herself to put any of these anxieties
into words, she had no opportunity. Kitty's voice was in the hall; the
handle turned, and she ran in.

"William! Ah!--I didn't know mother was here."

She went up to Elizabeth, and lightly kissed that lady's cheek.

"Good-morning. William, I just came to tell you that I may be late for
dinner, so perhaps you had better dine at the House. I am going on the
river."

"Are you?" said Ashe, gathering up his papers. "Wish I was."

"Are you going with the Crashaw's party?" asked Elizabeth. "I know they
have one."

"Oh, dear, no!" said Kitty. "I hate a crowd on the river. I am going
with Geoffrey Cliffe."

Ashe bent over his desk. Lady Tranmore's eyebrows went up, and she could
not restrain the word:

"Alone?"

"<i>Naturellement</i>!" laughed Kitty. "He reads me French poetry, and we
talk French. We let Madeleine Alcot come once, but her accent was so
shocking that Geoffrey wouldn't have her again!"

Lady Tranmore flushed deeply. The "Geoffrey" seemed to her intolerable.
Kitty, arrayed in the freshest of white gowns, walked away to the
farther end of the library to consult a <i>Bradshaw</i>. Elizabeth, looking
up, caught her son's eyes--and the mingled humor and vexation in them,
wherewith he appealed to her, as it were, to see the whole silly
business as he himself did. Lady Tranmore felt a moment's strong
reaction. Had she in