What did the girl's expression mean?--what was she thinking of? She was
looking intently at the crowded room, and it seemed to Ashe that
Darrell's talk, though his lips moved quickly, was not reaching her at
all. The dark brows were drawn together, and beneath them the eyes
looked sorely out. The delicate lips were slightly, piteously open, and
the whole girlish form in its young beauty appeared, as he watched, to
shrink together. Suddenly the girl's look, so wide and searching, caught
that of Ashe; and he moved impulsively forward.

"Present me, please, to Lady Kitty," he said, catching Warington's arm.

"Poor child!" said a low voice in his ear.

Ashe turned and saw Louis Harman. The tone, however--allusive, intimate,
patronizing--in which Harman had spoken, annoyed him, and he passed on
without taking any notice.

"Lady Kitty," said Warington, "Mr. Ashe wishes to be presented to you.
He is an old friend of your mother's. Congratulate him--he has just got
into Parliament."

Lady Kitty drew herself up, and all trace of the look which Ashe had
observed disappeared. She bowed, not carelessly as she had bowed to
Darrell, but with a kind of exaggerated stateliness, not less girlish.

"I never congratulate anybody," she said, shaking her head, "till I know
them."

Ashe opened his eyes a little.