tatement with the same simplicity, the same
whole-heartedness?

Involuntarily he moved closer to the bed and looked down on Kitty.
Little, delicate face!--always with something mournful and fretful in
repose.

He loved her surely as much as ever--ah! yes, he loved her. His whole
nature yearned over her, as the wife of his youth, the mother of his
poor boy. Yet, as he remembered the mood in which he had proposed to
her, that defiance of the world and life which had possessed him when he
had made her marry him, he felt himself--almost with bitterness--another
and a meaner man. No!--he was <i>not</i> prepared to lose the world for
her--the world of high influence and ambition upon which he had now
entered as a conqueror. She <i>must</i> so control herself that she did not
ruin all his hopes--which, after all, were hers--and the work he might
do for his country.

What incredible perversity and caprice she had shown towards Lord
Parham! How was he to deal with it--he, William Ashe, with his ironic
temper and his easy standards? What could he say to her but "Love me,
Kitty!--love yourself!--and don't be a little fool! Life might be so
amusing if you would only bridle your fancies and play the game!"

As for loftier things, "self-reverence, self-knowledge,
self-control"--duty--and the passion of high ideals--who was he to prate
about them? The little Dean, perhaps!--most spiritual of worldlings.
Ashe knew himself to be neither spiritual nor a hypocrite. A certain
measure, a certain order and harmony in life--laughter and good-humor
and affection--and, for the fight that makes and welds a man, those
great political and social interests in the midst of which he found
himself--he asked no more, and with these he would have been abundantly
content.

He sighed and frowned, his muscles stiffening unconsciously. Yes, for
both their sakes he must try and play the master with Kitty, ridiculous
as it seemed.

... He turned away, remembering his sick child--and went noiselessly to
the nursery. There, along the darkened passages, he found a night-nurse,
sitting working beside a shaded lamp. The child was sleeping, and the
report was good. Ashe stole on tiptoe to look at him, holding his
breath, then returned to his dressing-room. But a faint call from Kitty
pursued him. He opened the door, and saw her sitting up in bed.

"How is he?"

She was hardly awake, but her expression struck him as very wild and
piteous. He went to her a