"Gracious, Kitty, where do you get all these stories from?" cried Ashe,
when the chatter paused for a moment.
He looked at her with delight, rejoicing in her gayety, the slight
touches of white which to-day for the first time relieved the sombreness
of her dress, the return of her color. And Margaret wondered again how
much of it was rouge.
At the Armenian convent a handsome young monk took charge of them. As
George Sand and Lamennais had done before them, they looked at the
printing-press, the garden, the cloister, the church; they marvelled
lazily at the cleanliness and brightness of the place; and finally they
climbed to the library and museum, and the room close by where Byron
played at grammar-making. In this room Ashe fell suddenly into a
political talk with the young monk, who was an ardent and patriotic son
of the most unfortunate of nations, and they passed out and down the
stairs, followed by Margaret French, not noticing that Kitty had
lingered behind.
Kitty stood idly by the window of Byron's room, thinking restlessly of
verses that were not Byron's, though there was in them, clothed in forms
of the new age, the spirit of Byronic passion, and more than a touch of
Byronic affectation--thinking also of the morning's telegram.
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