drawing-room window, in pursuit of a table that broke a chair and
finally danced upon a flower-bed. His theology was harassed by these
proceedings and his digestion upset. The Dean took it with smiles; but
then the Dean was a Latitudinarian.

Afterwards Kitty and the Cambridge boy--Eddie Helston--performed a
duologue in French for the amusement of the company. Whatever could be
understood in it had better not have been understood--such at least was
Lord Grosville's impression. He wondered how Ashe--who laughed
immoderately--could allow his wife to do such things; and his only
consolation was that, for once, the Dean--whose fancy for Kitty was
ridiculous!--seemed to be disturbed. He had at any rate walked away to
the library in the middle of the piece. Kitty was, of course, making a
fool of the boy all through. Any one could see that he was head over
ears in love with her. And she seemed to have all sorts of mysterious
understandings with him. Lord Grosville was certain they passed each
other notes, and made assignations. And one night, on going up himself
to bed very late, he had actually come upon the pair pacing up and down
the long passage after midnight!--Kitty in such a <i>negligee</i> as only an
actress should wear, with her hair about her ears--and the boy out of
his wits and off his balance, as any one could see. Kitty, indeed, had
been quite unabashed--trying even to draw <i>him</i> into their unseemly talk
about some theatrical nonsense or other; and such blushes as there were
had been entirely left to the boy.

He supposed there was no harm in it. The lad was not a Geoffrey Cliffe,
and it was no doubt Kitty's mad love of excitement which impelled her
to these defiances of convention. But Ashe should put his foot down;
there was no knowing with a creature so wild and so lovely where these
things might end. And after the scandal of last year--

As to that scandal, Lord Grosville, as a man of the world, by no means
endorsed the lurid imaginations of his wife. Kitty and Cliffe had
certainly behaved badly at Grosville Park--that is to say, judged by any
ordinary standards. And the gossip of the season had apparently gathered
and culminated round some incident of a graver character than the
rest--though nobody precisely knew what it might be. But it seemed that
Ashe had at last asserted himself; and if in Kitty's abrupt departure to
the country, and the sudden dissolution of the intimacy between herself
and Cli