"You expect us to be too much
on our knees."
"As if we should ever get you there if it didn't amuse you!" said Kitty.
"Hypocrites! If we don't dress, paint, chatter, and tell lies for you,
you won't look at us--and if we do--"
"Of course, it all depends on how well it's done," threw in Cliffe.
Kitty laughed.
"That's judging by results. I look to the motive. I repeat, if I powder
and paint, it's not because I'm vain, but because it's my painful duty
to give you pleasure."
"And if it doesn't give me pleasure?"
She shrugged her shoulders.
"Call me stupid then--not vain. I ought to have done it better."
"In any case," said Ashe, "it's your duty to please us?"
"Yes--" sighed Kitty. "Worse luck!"
And she sank softly back in her chair, her eyes shining under the
stimulus of the laugh that ran through her circle. The Dean joined in it
uneasily, conscious, no doubt, of the sharp, crackling movements by
which in the distance Lady Grosville was dumbly expressing
herself--through the
Times. Cliffe looked at the small figure a
moment, then seized a chair and sat down in front of her, astride.
"I wonder why you want to please us?" he said, abruptly, his magnificent
blue eyes upon her.
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