r governesses dined with the family
or came in afterward with the coffee; but it was a sporting chance, and
I took it.

Then Sir John came up and joined us.

"You can't well dance tomorrow, Kitty," he said to his wife. "There's
been an outpost affair in the Swat Hills, and young Fitzgerald has
been shot. Come to dinner of course, Clifden. Glad to see you. But no
dancing, I think."

Kitty Meryon's mouth drooped like a pouting child's. Was it for the lost
dance, or the lost soldier lying out on the hills in the dying sunset.
Who could tell? In either case it was pretty enough for the illustrated
papers.

"How sad! Such a dear boy. We shall miss him at tennis." Then brightly;
"Well, we'll have to put the dance off for a week, but come tomorrow
anyhow."

II

Next evening I went into Lady Meryon's flower-scented drawing-room. The
electric fans were fluttering and the evening air was cool. Five or
six pretty girls and as many men made up the party--Kitty Meryon the
prettiest of them all, fashionably undressed in faint pink and crystal,
with a charming smile in readiness, all her gay little flags flying in
the rich man's honour. I am no vainer than other men, but I saw that.
Whatever her charm might be it was none for me. What could I say to
interest her who lived in her foolish little world as one shut in a
bright bubble? And she had said the wrong word about young Fitzgerald--I
wanted Vanna, with her deep seeing eyes, to say the right one and adjust
those cruel values.

Governesses dine, it appeared, only to fill an unexpected place, or make
a decorous entry afterward, to play accompaniments. Fortunately Kitty
Meryon sang, in a pinched little soprano, not nearly so pretty as her
silver ripple of talk.

It was when the party had settled down to bridge and I was standing out,
that I ventured to go up to her as she sat knitting by a window--not
unwatched by the quick flash of Lady Meryon's eyes as I did it.

"I think you hypnotize me, Miss Loring. When I hear anything I
straightway want to know what you will say. Have you heard of
Fitzgerald's death?"

"That is why we are not dancing tonight. Tomorrow the cable will reach
his home in England. He was an only child, and they are the great people
of the village where we are the little people. I knew his mother as one
knows a great lady who is kind to all the village folk. It may kill her.
It is travelling tonight like a bullet to her heart, and she does not
know