s?</i>"

"Well, who escapes it?" said Darrell, bitterly.

* * * * *

Most of the party had dispersed. Only Lady Tranmore and Margaret French
were on the lawn. Margaret was writing some household notes for Kitty;
Lady Tranmore sat in meditation, with a book before her which she was
not reading. Miss French glanced at her from time to time. Ashe's mother
was beginning to show the weight of years far more plainly than she had
yet done. In these last three years the face had perceptibly altered; so
had the hair. The long strain of nursing, and that pathetic change which
makes of the husband who has been a woman's pride and shelter her
half-conscious dependent, had, no doubt, left deep marks upon a beauty
which had so long resisted time. And yet Margaret French believed it was
rather with her son than with her husband that the constant and wearing
anxiety of Lady Tranmore's life should be connected. All the ambition,
the pride of race and history which had been disappointed in her husband
had poured themselves into her devotion to her son. She lived now for
his happiness and success. And both were constantly threatened by the
personality and the presence of Kitty.

Such, at least, as Margaret French well knew, was the inmost
persuasion--fast becoming a fanaticism--of Ashe's mother. William might,
indeed, for the moment have triumphed over the consequences of Kitty's
bygone behavior. But the reckless, untamed character was there still at
his side, preparing Heaven knew what pitfalls and catastrophes. Lady
Tranmore lived in fear. And under the outward sweetness and dignity of
her manner was there not developing something worse than fear--that
hatred which is one of the strange births of love?

If so, was it just? There were many moments when Margaret would have
indignantly denied it.

It was true, indeed, that Kitty's eccentricity seemed to develop with
every month that passed. The preceding winter had been marked, first by
a mad folly of table-turning--involving the pursuit of a particular
medium whose proceedings had ultimately landed him in the dock; then by
a headlong passion for hunting, accompanied by a series of new
flirtations, each more unseemly than its predecessor, as it seemed to
Lady Tranmore. Afterwards--during the general election--a political
phase! Kitty had most unfortunately discovered that she could speak in
public, and had fallen in love with the sound of her own voice.