Kitty had thrown herself
at first upon William's mother with all the effusion possible. She had
been docile, caressing, brilliant. Lady Tranmore had become almost as
proud of her gifts, her social effect, and her fast advancing beauty as
Ashe himself. Kitty's whims and humors; her passion for this person, and
her hatred of that; her love of splendor and indifference to debt; her
contempt of opinion and restraint, seemed to her, as to Ashe, the mere
crude growth of youth. When she looked at Ashe, so handsome, agreeable,
and devoted, at his place and prestige in the world, his high
intelligence and his personal attraction, Ashe's mother must needs think
that Kitty's mere cleverness would soon reveal to her her extraordinary
good-fortune; and that whereas he was now at her feet, she before long
would be at his.
Three years! Lady Tranmore looked back upon them with feelings that
wavered like smoke before a wind. A year of excitement, a year of
illness, a year of extravagance, shaken moreover by many strange gusts
of temper and caprice, it was so she might have summarized them. First,
a most promising debut in London. Kitty welcomed on all hands with
enthusiasm as Ashe's wife and her own daughter-in-law, feted to the top
of her bent, smiled on at Court, flattered by the country-houses, always
exquisitely dressed, smiling and eager, apparently full of ambition for
Ashe no less than for herself, a happy, notorious, busy little person,
with a touch of wildness that did but give edge to her charm and keep
the world talking.
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