to Cliffe, as though in
some sort they two had really been talking all the time, through all the
apparent conversation with other people.

"I have read all your telegrams," she said. "Why did you attack William
so fiercely?"

Cliffe was taken by surprise, but he felt no embarrassment--her tone was
not that of the wife in arms.

"I attacked the official--not the man. William knows that."

"He is coming in to-day if possible. He wanted to see you."

"Good news! William knows that he would have hit just as hard in my
place."

"I don't think he would," said Kitty, calmly. "He is so generous."

The color rushed to Cliffe's face.

"Well scored! I wish I had a wife to play these strokes for me. I shall
argue that a keen politician has no right to be generous. He is at war."

Kitty took no notice. She leaned her little chin on her hand, and her
eyes perused the face of her companion.

"Where have you been--all the time--before America?"

"In the deserts--fighting devils," said Cliffe, after a moment.

"What does that mean?" she asked, wondering.

"Read my new book. That will tell you about the deserts."

"And the devils?"

"Ah, I keep them to myself."

"Do you?" she said, softly. "I have just read your poems over again."

Cliffe gave a slight start, then looked indifferent.

"Have you? But they were written three years ago. Dieu merci, one finds
new devils like new acquaintances."

She shook her head.

"What do you mean?" he asked her, half amused, half arrested.

"They are always the old," she said, in a low voice. Their eyes met. In
hers was the same veiled, restless melancholy as in his own. Together
with the dazzling air of youth that surrounded her, the cherished,
flattered, luxurious existence that she and her house suggested, they
made a strange impression upon him. "Does she mean me to understand that
she is not happy?" he thought to himself. But the next moment she was
engaged in a merry chatter with the Dean, and all trace of the mood she
had thus momentarily shown him had vanished.

Half-way through the luncheon, Ashe came in. He appeared, fresh and
smiling, irreproachably dressed, and showing no trace whatever of the
hard morning of official work he had just passed through, nor of the
many embarrassments which, as every one knew, were weighing on the
Foreign Office. The Dean, with his keen sense for the dramatic, watched
the meeting between him and Cliffe with some closeness, having in min