,
Mrs. Winston, sat in fascinated silence observing Lady Kitty. The
silence and the attention annoyed her hostess. The first thing to be
done with girls of this type, it seemed to Lady Grosville, was to prove
to them that they would <i>not</i> be allowed to monopolize society.

* * * * *

There are natural monopolies, however, and they are not easy to deal
with.

As soon as the gentlemen returned, Mr. Rankine, whom she had treated so
badly at dinner, the young agent of the estate, the clergyman of the
parish, the Austrian attache, the cabinet minister, and the Dean, all
showed a strong inclination to that side of the room which seemed to be
held in force by Lady Kitty. The Dean especially was not to be gainsaid.
He placed himself in the seat shyly vacated by the French governess, and
crossed his thin, stockinged legs with the air of one who means to take
his ease. There was even a certain curious resemblance between him and
Kitty, as was noticed from a distance by Ashe. The Dean, who was very
much a man of the world, and came of an historic family, was, in his
masculine degree, planned on the same miniature scale and with the same
fine finish as the girl of eighteen. And he carried his knee-breeches,
his apron, and his exquisite white head with a natural charm and energy
akin to hers--mellowed though it were by time, and dignified by office.
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. Honore, 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 regimes--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,