"Kitty won't go," said Ashe, quietly. "I am sorry, dear mother. I hate that you should be worried. But there's the fact. Kitty won't go!"
"Then use your authority," said Lady Tranmore.
"I have none."
"William!" Ashe rose from his seat, and began to walk up and down. His aspect of competence and dignity, as of a man already accustomed to command, and destined to a high experience, had never been more marked than at the very moment of this helpless utterance. His mother looked at him with mingled admiration and amazement.
Presently he paused beside her.
"I should like you to understand me, mother. I cannot fight with Kitty. Before I asked her to marry me I made up my mind to that. I knew then and I know now that nothing but disaster could come of it. She must be free—and I shall not attempt to coerce her."
"Or to protect her!" cried his mother.
"As to that, I shall do what I can. But I clearly foresaw when we married that we should scandalize a good many of the weaker brethren."
He smiled, but, as it seemed to his mother, with some effort.
"William!—as a public man—" He interrupted her.
"If I can be both Kitty's husband and a public man well and good. If not, then I shall be—"
"Kitty's husband?" cried Lady Tranmore, with an accent of bitterness, almost of sarcasm, of which she instantly repented her. She changed her tone.
"It is of course Kitty, first and foremost, who is concerned in your public position," she said, more gently. "Dearest William—she is so young still—she probably doesn't quite understand, in spite of her great cleverness. But she does care,—she must care;—and she ought to know what slight things may sometimes affect a man's prospects and future in this country."
Ashe said nothing. He turned on his heel and resumed his pacing. Lady Tranmore looked at him in perplexity.
"William, I heard a rumor last night—"
He held his cigarette suspended.
"Lord Crashaw told me that the resignations would certainly be in the papers this week,—and that the ministry would go on—after a rearrangement of posts. Is it true?"
Ashe resumed his cigarette.
"True,—as to the facts—so far as I know. As to the date, Lord Crashaw knows, I think, no more than I do. It may be this week, it may be next month."
"Then I hear—thank goodness I never see her," Elizabeth went on reluctantly,—"that that dreadful woman Lady Parham is more infuriated than ever—"
"With Kitty? Let her be! It really doesn't matter an old shoe, either to Kitty or me."
"She can be a most bitter enemy, William. And she certainly influences Lord Parham."
Ashe smoked and smiled. Lady Tranmore saw that his pride, too, had been aroused, and that here he was likely to prove as obstinate as Kitty.
"I wish I could get her out of my mind!" she sighed.
Ashe glanced at her kindly.
"I dare say we shall hold our own. Xantippe is not beloved, and I don't believe Parham will let her interfere with what he thinks best for the party. Will it pay to put me in the cabinet or not?—that's what he'll ask. I shall be strongly backed, too, by most of our papers."
A number of thoughts ran through Lady Tranmore's brain. With her long experience of London, she knew well what the sudden lowering of a man's "considération"—to use a French word—at a critical moment may mean. A cooling of the general regard,—a breath of detraction coming no one knows whence,—and how soon new claims emerge, and the indispensable of yesterday becomes the negligible of to-day!
But even if she could have brought herself to put any of these anxieties into words, she had no opportunity. Kitty's voice was in the hall; the handle turned, and she ran in.
"William! Ah!—I didn't know mother was here."
She went up to Elizabeth, and lightly kissed that lady's cheek.
"Good morning. William, I just came to tell you that I may be late for dinner, so perhaps you had better dine at the House. I am going on the river."
