The notion of the white-haired,
bullet-headed, shrewd, and masterful man who at that moment held the
Premiership of England managed by Kitty, or any other daughter of
Eve--always excepting his wife--must needs strike those who had the
slightest acquaintance with Lord Parham as a delicious absurdity.
Suddenly Darrell checked himself, and bent forward.
"Where--if I may ask--is the poet?"
"Geoffrey? Somewhere in the Balkans, isn't he?--making a revolution."
Darrell nodded.
"I remember. They say he is with the revolutionary committee at
Marinitza. Meanwhile there is a new volume of poems out--to-day," said
Darrell, glancing at a newspaper thrown down beside him.
"I have seen it. The 'portrait' at the end--"
"Is Lady Kitty." They spoke under their breaths.
"Unmistakable, I think," said Kitty's best friend. "As poetry, it seems
to me the best thing in the book, but the audacity of it!" She raised
her eyebrows in a half-unwilling, half-contemptuous admiration.
"Has she seen it?"
Mrs. Alcot replied that she had not noticed any copy in the house, and
that Kitty had not spoken of it, which, given the Kitty-nature, she
probably would have done, had it reached her.
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