But our modern life breeds
such creatures, and they have to be borne.
* * * * *
He let himself into a silent house. His letters lay on the hall-table.
Among them was a handwriting which arrested him. He remembered, yet
could not put a name to it. Then he turned the envelope. "H'm. Lady
Grosville!" He read it, standing there, then thrust it into his pocket,
thinking angrily that there seemed to be a good many fools in this world
who occupied themselves with other people's business. Exaggeration, of
course, damnable
parti pris! When did she ever see Kitty except with a
jaundiced eye? "I wonder Kitty condescends to go to the woman's house!
She must know that everything she does is seen there
en noir.
Pharisaical, narrow-minded Philistines!"
The letter acted as a tonic. Ashe was positively grateful to the "old
gorgon" who wrote it. He ran up-stairs, his pulses tingling in defence
of Kitty. He would show Lady Grosville that she could not write to him,
at any rate, in that strain, with impunity.
He took a candle from the landing, and opened his wife's door in order
to pass through her room to his own.
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