lance
at the scattered letters beside Clodagh's plate. Then, straightening
herself again with apparent nonchalance, she moved to the open window
and stood looking down upon the park.

"Clodagh!" she said suddenly. "Are you busy? Can we talk?"

Clodagh turned sharply, and almost with a gesture of surprise. The
whole round of her intercourse with Lady Frances Hope had been of so
easy, of so superficial a nature--the whole tone of their friendship
had been pitched in so unemotional a key--since the one night in the
Paris hotel, when they had touched upon things vital to them both--that
the suggestion of reality, or even gravity, brought a sudden uneasiness
to her mind.

"Oh, of course!" she said uncertainly--"of course! Let us sit down."

She returned to her own seat and indicated another to her visitor with
a slightly hurried movement.

But Lady Frances did not respond to the invitation. Instead, she
wandered back to the table, and again bent over the bowl of flowers.

"Why are we always climbing--only to slip back again?" she asked
irrelevantly.

Again a faint uneasiness touched Clodagh's face.

"I thought you enjoyed climbing."

"Not to-day. Clodagh, you'll think me a horrid nuisance, but it's about
that money----"

She paused as she said the word, and involuntarily her quick glance
passed once more over the papers on the table.

For a second Clodagh remained silent; then she spoke, a little
slowly--a little haltingly.

"Oh yes--the money," she said.

Lady Frances looked at her shrewdly.

"Yes, you remember on Tuesday--when you borrowed that sixty pounds to
pay old Lady Shrawle--I said I could wait for everything till August."

"Yes--oh yes!"

"Well, I've had a horrid drop since then--yesterday, in fact."

For a moment longer, Clodagh sat staring aimlessly at the papers in
front of her; then she raised her head and looked at her companion. Her
face was a little pale, but her eyes and lips looked almost scornfully
unconcerned.

"Poor you!" she said easily. "What a bore! You must let me settle up
our differences at once--to-day."

She rose and pushed back her chair.

A look of surprise crossed the older woman's face--this time it was
surprise tempered with bewilderment.

"To-day! But can you? I know how many little expenses----" She waved
her hand expressively towards the breakfast-table, with its many costly
adjuncts.

Clodagh made a lofty gesture of denial; and, walking across the room,
pa