" she murmured reproachfully--"my dear child, you have
misunderstood. I never implied that Walter interested you personally; I
merely used him as an illustration--as a means of conveying the folly
of taking serious people seriously. But you are tired. I have been
cruelly unreasonable. I shall send you straight to bed. You are fagged
after that long journey."

She put out her hand and laid it on Clodagh's arm; but Clodagh was not
in a mood to be caressed.

"It's all right!" she said abruptly. "I suppose we both misunderstood.
I _am_ a little tired. I think I _will_ say good-night!"

"Good-night, dear child!" Lady Frances pressed her hand, and walked
with her slowly across the room. As she passed out into the corridor,
she waved a gay farewell. "Sleep well!" she called. "But dream of an
English February--and wake with a changed mind!"

As she said the last words, Clodagh paused for a moment; then went on
again without speaking, and entered her own room.

Tired though she was, she scarcely slept that night; and in the early
hours of the morning she saw the bright dawn break over Paris. At eight
o'clock she rang for Simonetta, and asked for ink, pen, and note-paper.

Sitting up in bed, she wrote the following note.

"DEAR LADY FRANCES,

"As we are both women, I can hope that you won't call me variable.
If you still want me as a companion, I think I will, after all, go
with you to Nice. Looking into the matter more closely, I find I
really have no affinity for sleet or influenza!

"Yours,

"CLODAGH MILBANKE."

Having despatched the note to Lady Frances Hope, she wrote two long,
feverishly hasty letters--one to Laurence Asshlin at Orristown, the
other to Nance at her school near London.

CHAPTER III

It was in the middle of February that Clodagh arrived in Paris on her
journey home; and it was the end of April before that ardently planned
return to England at last took place.

On a fresh, showery April afternoon when all London looked renewed and
beautified by soft air and fitful brilliant sunshine, she alighted from
the train at Charing Cross.

Her arrival in the lofty, unfamiliar station was very different from
her arrival at the bustling, exciting Parisian terminus two months
earlier. Then, she had descended from her train with the rapidity of
one who sees in the least promising object the hope--if not the
certainty--of interest; now, she left her carriage with the q