"You heard what she said. Extraordinary girl! to let the thing out plump like that. Just like the blood. They say anything that comes into their heads. If we had known that Alice was to be with the Sowerbys this week-end, my wife would certainly have put Kitty off. It would be uncommonly awkward if they were to meet--here for instance. Hullo! Is it getting late?" For the whist-players at the end of the library had pushed back their chairs, and men were strolling back from the billiard-room. "I am afraid Lady Kitty understands there is something wrong with her mother's position," said Ashe, as they rose. "I dare say. Brought up in Paris, you see," said the white-haired Englishman, with a shrug. "Of course, she knows everything she shouldn't." "Brought up in a convent, please," said Ashe, smiling. "And I thought the French _girl_ was the most innocent and ignorant thing alive." Lord Grosville received the remark with derision. "You ask my wife what she thinks about French convents. She knows--she's had lots of Catholic relations. She'll tell you tales." Ashe thought, however, that he could trust himself to see that she did nothing of the sort. * * * * * The smoking-room broke up late, but the new Under-secretary sat up still later, reading and smoking in his bedroom. A box of Foreign Office papers lay on his table. He went through them with a keen sense of pleasure, enjoying his new work and his own competence to do it, of which, notwithstanding his remarks to Mary Lyster, he was not really at all in doubt. Then when his comments were done, and the papers replaced in the order in which they would now go up to the Secretary of State, he felt the spring night oppressively mild, and walking to the window, he threw it wide open.