There was a clamor of shouting voices: "Move on, cabby! Move on!" "Stand
clear, ma'am, please," said the driver, while Cliffe opened the door of
the cab, and seemed about to jump down again.
"Who is it?" said an impatient judge behind Lady Parham. "What's the
matter?"
Lady Parham shrugged her shoulders.
"It's Lady Kitty Ashe," whispered the
debutante, who was the judge's
daughter, "talking to Mr. Cliffe. Isn't she pretty?"
A sudden silence fell upon the group in the porch. Kitty's high, clear
laugh seemed to ring back into the house. Then Ashe ran down the steps.
"Kitty, don't stop the way." He peremptorily drew her back.
Cliffe raised his hat, fell back into the hansom, and the man whipped up
his horse.
Kitty came back to the outer hall with Ashe. Her cheeks had a rose
flush, her wild eyes laughed at the crowd on the steps, without really
seeing them.
"Are you going with Lady Parham?" she said, absently, to Mary Lyster.
"Yes."
Kitty looked up and Ashe saw the two faces as she and Mary confronted
each other--the contempt in Mary's, the startled wrath in Kitty's.
"Come, Miss Lyster!" said Lady Parham, and pushing past the Ashes
without a good-night, she hurried to her carriage, drawing up the glass
with a hasty hand, though the night was balmy.
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