He threw away his cigarette, and his face changed.
"What we have to do, my dear Kitty, is simply to hold our tongues."
Kitty sat up in some excitement.
"That man never hears the truth!"
Ashe shrugged his shoulders. It seemed to him incredible that she should
pursue this particular topic, after the incidents at Haggart.
"That's not the purpose for which Prime Ministers exist. Anyway,
wecan't tell it him."
Undaunted, however, by his tone, and with what seemed to him
extraordinary excitability of manner, Kitty reminded him of an incident
in the life of a bygone administration, when the near relative of an
English statesman, staying at the time in the statesman's house, had
sent a communication to one of the quarterlies attacking his policy and
belittling his character, by means of information obtained in the
intimacy of a country-house party.
"One of the most treacherous things ever done!" said Ashe, indignantly.
"Fair fight, if you like! But if that kind of thing were to spread, I
for one should throw up politics to-morrow."
"Every one said it did a vast deal of good," persisted Kitty.
"A precious sort of good! Yes--I believe Parham in particular profited
by it--more shame to him! If anybody ever tried to help me in that sort
of way--anybody, that is, for whom I felt the smallest responsibility--I
know what I should do.
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