used beside her bureau.

For a minute there was no sound in the room save the abrupt opening and
shutting of one or two small drawers; then Clodagh turned round again,
a cheque-book in her hand.

"Now tell me what I owe you," she said. "I'll write you a cheque and
post-date it to July the first. Will that do? I draw my money then, you
know."

"Perfectly. But, my dear Clodagh----"

But again Clodagh made a gesture that seemed to relegate the matter to
a region of obscure--if not of absolutely contemptible--things.

"Don't trouble!" she said. "Money is never worth an argument. What do I
owe?"

During her words, her companion had sat silent--speculative and
suspicious. To her worldly mind, Clodagh's grand manner--Clodagh's
extraordinary behaviour--indicated but one possibility. She had found
means of augmenting her income!

Any knowledge of the false pride, the empty magnificence that will,
metaphorically speaking, fling its last coin to a beggar, while passing
on to penury, had never come within her experience. It needs the
environments of such places as Orristown to bring them to maturity. She
looked now at her companion, and her eyes narrowed in a sudden,
triumphant satisfaction. Something that she had anticipated had come to
pass! At the imagined discovery, she gave a quick laugh.

"If you insist on being so scrupulous----"

Clodagh looked round from the bureau at which she had seated herself.

"How much?" she said laconically.

Lady Frances pretended to knit her brows.

"Well, there was the eight hundred pounds at Nice--and the forty pounds
the night of your return to town--the night we played bridge with Val
and Deerehurst----"

She looked very quickly at Clodagh.

But Clodagh gave no sign. "And the fifty pounds a fortnight
ago--besides the sixty for Lady Shrawle," she interrupted.

"Yes--oh yes! Let me see, that makes----"

"Nine hundred and fifty pounds," Clodagh interjected in a very quiet
voice; and picking up a pen, she wrote out the cheque, signing it with
her usual bold signature. A moment later she rose, blotted it, and held
it out.

As the flimsy slip of paper passed from one to the other, the elder
woman permitted a gleam of curiosity to show in her eyes.

"A thousand thanks!" she exclaimed. "And don't think me a wretch if I
run away now that I've got it. You know how fidgety my bay mare is.
Well, good-bye! I shall see you at Ranelagh?"

But Clodagh was absently studying her cheque-