"Can you tolerate such an early visitor?" she asked. Clodagh started almost guiltily, and drew the array of papers into a confused heap; then she rose hastily, laughing to cover her momentary confusion. "How you frightened me!" she said. "I must be developing nerves. But come in! I am delighted!" She went forward with apparent cordiality, and, taking her visitor's hand, kissed her. "How nice and energetic you look! You make me feel very lazy. I wasn't in the mood for a ride this morning. Come in! Sit down!" Lady Frances responded to the suggestion by moving across the room. Pausing by the breakfast-table, she bent forward and buried her face for a moment in the flowers, at the same time stealing a swift glance 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.