"Poor Kitty! She tried to flirt with him long ago--just after she arrived in London, fresh out of the convent. It was so funny! He told me afterwards he never was so embarrassed in his life--this baby making eyes at him! And now--oh no!" "Why not now? Lady Kitty's very much the rage, and Mr. Cliffe likes notoriety." "But a notoriety with--well, with some style, some distinction! Kitty's sort is so cheap and silly." "Ah, well, she's not to be despised," said Lady Parham. "She's as clever as she can be. But her husband will have to keep her in order." "Can he?" said Mary. "Won't she always be in his way?" "Always, I should think. But he must have known what he was about. Why didn't his mother interfere? Such a family!--such a history!" "She did interfere," said Mary. "We all did our best"--she dropped her voice--"I know I did. But it was no use. If men like spoiled children they must have them, I suppose. Let's hope he'll learn how to manage her. Shall we go on? I promised to meet my supper-partner in the library." They moved away. * * * * * For some minutes Kitty stood looking out, motionless, but the beating of her heart choked her. Strange ancestral things--things of evil--things of passion--had suddenly awoke, as it were, from sleep in the depths of her being, and rushed upon the citadel of her life. A change had passed over her from head to foot. Her veins ran fire. At that moment, turning round, she saw Geoffrey Cliffe enter the room in which she stood. With an impetuous movement she approached him. "Take me down to supper, Mr. Cliffe. I can't wait for Lord Hubert any more, I'm _so_ hungry!" "Enchanted!" said Cliffe, the color leaping into his tanned face as he looked down upon the goddess. "But I came to find--" "Miss Lyster? Oh, she is gone in with Mr. Darrell. Come with me. I have a ticket for the reserved tent. We shall have a delicious corner to ourselves." And she took from her glove the little coveted paste-board, which--handed about in secret to a few intimates of the house--gave access to the sanctum sanctorum of the evening. Cliffe wavered. Then his vanity succumbed. A few minutes later the supper guests in the tent of the _élite_ saw the entrance of a darkly splendid Duke of Alva, with a little sandalled goddess. All compact, it seemed, of ivory and fire, on his arm. XI The spring freshness of London, had long since departed. A crowded season; much animation in Parliament, where the government, to its own amazement, had rather gained than lost ground; industrial trouble at home, and foreign complications abroad; and in London the steady growth of a new plutocracy, the result, so far, of American wealth and American brides. In the first week of July, the outward things of the moment might have been thus summed up by any careful observer.