"Ashe trifles it as usual," said Cliffe, as he and Mary forced a passage
into one of the smaller rooms. "Is there anything in the world that he
really cares about?"
Mary looked at him with a start. It was almost on her lips to say, "Yes!
his wife." She only just succeeded in driving the words back.
"His not caring is a pretence," she said. "At least, Lady Tranmore
thinks so. She believes that he is becoming absorbed in politics--much
more ambitious than she ever thought he would be."
"That's the way of mothers," said Cliffe, with a sarcastic lip. "They
have got to make the best of their sons. Tell me what you are going to
do this summer."
He had thrown one arm round the back of a chair, and sat looking down
upon her, his colorless fair hair falling thick upon his brow, and
giving by contrast a strange inhuman force to the dark and singular eyes
beneath. He had a way of commanding a woman's attention by flashes of
brusquerie, melting when he chose into a homage that had in it the note
of an older world, a world that had still leisure for, passion and its
refinements, a world still within sight of that other which had produced
the
Carte du tendre.
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