He began eagerly to talk to her of Paris. His father had been
ambassador for a time under Louis Philippe, and he had boyish memories
of the great house in the Faubourg St. Honoré, and of the Orleanist
ministers and men of letters. And lo! Kitty met him at once, in a glow
and sparkle that enchanted the old man. Moreover, it appeared that this
much-beflounced young lady could talk; that she had heard of the famous
names and the great affairs to which the Dean made allusion; that she
possessed indeed a native and surprising interest in matter of the sort;
and a manner, above all, with the old, alternately soft and daring,
calculated, as Lady Grosville would no doubt have put it, merely to make
fools of them.

In her cousins' house, it seemed, she had talked with old people,
survivors of the Orleanist and Bourbon régimes--even of the Empire; had
sat at their feet, a small, excited hero-worshipper; and had then rushed
blindly into the memoirs and books that concerned them. So, in this
French world the child had found time for other things than hunting, and
the flattery of her cousin Henri? Ashe was supposed to be devoting
himself to the Dean's wife; but both he and she listened most of the
time to the sallies and the laughter of the circle where Kitty presided.

"My dear young lady," cried the delighted Dean, "I never find anybody
who can talk of these things--it is really astonishing. Ah, _now_, we
English know nothing of France--nor they of us. Why, I was a mere
school-boy then, and I had a passion for their society, and their
books--for their _plays_--dare I confess it?"--he lowered his voice and
glanced at his hostess--"their plays, above all!"

Kitty clapped her hands. The Dean looked at her, and ran on: