"Yes,—if I can drag the words out," he said, sombrely. She met his look in a kind of fascination, excited by the memory of the story which had been told her, by her own audacity in speaking of it, by the presence of the dead passion she divined, lying shrouded and ghastly in the mind of the man beside her. Even the ugly things of which he was accused did but add to the interest of his personality for a nature like hers, greedy of experience, and discontented with the real.
While he on his side was flattered and astonished by her attitude towards him. As Ashe's wife, she would surely dislike and try to trample on him. That was what he had expected.
"I hear you are an Archangel, Lady Kitty," said the Dean, who, having obstinately outstayed all the other guests, had now settled his small person and his thin legs into a chair beside his hostess with a view to five agreeable minutes. He was the most harmless of social epicures, was the Dean, and he felt that Lady Kitty had defrauded him at lunch—in favor of that great, ruffling, Byronic fellow Cliffe, who ought to have better taste than to come lunching with the Ashes.
"Am I?" said Kitty, who had thrown herself into the corner of a sofa, and sat curled up there in an attitude which the Dean thought charming, though it would not—he was aware—have become Mrs. Winston.
"Well, you know best," said the Dean. "But at any rate be good and explain to me what is an Archangel."
"Somebody whom most men and all women dislike," said Kitty, promptly.
"Yet they seem to be numerous," remarked the Dean.
"Not at all!" cried Kitty, with an air of offence,—"not at all! If they were numerous, they would of course be popular."
"And in fact they are rare—and detested? What other characteristics have they?"
"Courage," said Kitty, looking up.
"Courage to break rules? I hear they all call each other by their Christian names,—and live in each other's rooms,—and borrow each other's money,—and despise conventionalities. I am sorry you are an Archangel, Lady Kitty!"
"I didn't admit that I was," said Kitty, "but if I am—why are you sorry?"
"Because," said the Dean, smiling, "I thought you were too clever to despise conventionalities."
Kitty sat up with revived energy and joined battle. She flew into a tirade as to the dulness and routine of English life, the stupidity of good people, and the tyranny of English hypocrisy. The Dean listened with amusement, then with a shade of something else. At last he got up to go.
"Well, you know, we have heard all that before. My point of view is so much more interesting—subtle—romantic! Anybody can attack Mrs. Grundy, but only a person of originality can adore her. Try it, Lady Kitty! It would be really worth your while."
Kitty mocked and exclaimed.
"Do you know what that phrase—that name of abomination—always recalls to me?" pursued the old man.
"It bores me even to guess," was Kitty's petulant reply.
"Does it? I think of some of the noblest people I have ever known—brave men—beautiful women—who fought Mrs. Grundy—and perished!"
The Dean stood looking down upon her with an eager, sensitive expression. Tales that he had heeded very little when he had first heard them ran through his mind; he had thought Lady Kitty's intimate tête-à-tête with her husband's assailant in the press disagreeable and unseemly; and as for Mrs. Alcot, he had disliked her particularly.
Kitty looked up unquelled.
"'Tis better to have fought and lost—
Than never to have fought at all—"
she quoted, with one of her most radiant and provoking smiles.
"Incorrigible!" cried the Dean, catching up his hat. "I see!—once an Archangel—always an Archangel."
"Oh no !" said Kitty. "There may be 'war in heaven.'"
"Well, don't take Mrs. Alcot for a leader, that's all," said the Dean, as he held out a hand of farewell.
"Now I understand!" cried Kitty, triumphantly. "You detest my best friend!"
