ged her shoulders, and then added, "Maman's probably in the
pink of society here. Venice doesn't take its cue from people like Aunt
Lina!"

Ashe smiled uncomfortably. He was in truth by this time infinitely
better acquainted with the incidents of Madame d'Estrees's past career
than Kitty was. He had no mind whatever that Kitty should become less
ignorant, but his knowledge sometimes made conversation difficult.

Kitty was perfectly aware of his embarrassment.

"You never tell me--" she said, abruptly. "Did she really do such
dreadful things?"

"My dear Kitty!--why talk about it?"

Kitty flushed, then threw a flower into the water below with a defiant
gesture.

"What does it matter? It's all so long ago. I have nothing to do with
what I did ten years ago--nothing!"

"A convenient doctrine!" laughed Ashe. "But it cuts both ways. You get
neither the good of your good nor the bad of your bad."

"I have no good," said Kitty, bitterly.

"What's the matter with you, miladi?" said Ashe, half scolding, half
tender. "You growl over my remarks as though you were your own small dog
with a bone. Come here and let me tell you the news."

And drawing the sofa up to the open window which commanded the
marvellous waterway outside, with its rows of palaces on either hand, he
made her lie down while he read her extracts from his letters.

Margaret French, who was writing at the farther side of the room,
glanced at them furtively from time to time. She saw that Ashe was
trying to charm away the languor of his companion by that talk of his,
shrewd, humorous, vehement, well informed, which made him so welcome to
the men of his own class and mode of life. And when he talked to a woman
as he was accustomed to talk to men, that woman felt it a compliment.
Under the stimulus of it, Kitty woke up, laughed, argued, teased, with
something of her natural animation.

Presently, indeed, the voices had sunk so much and the heads had drawn
so close together that Margaret French slipped away, under the
impression that they were discussing matters to which she was not meant
to listen.

She had hardly closed the door when Kitty drew herself away from Ashe,
and holding his arm with both hands looked strangely into his eyes.

"You're awfully good to me, William. But, you know--you don't tell me
secrets!"

"What do you mean, darling?"

"You don't tell me the real secrets--what Lord Palmerston used to tell
to Lady Palmerston!"

"How do y