Chapter VI

The habit of self-deception had become as a cloak in which Clodagh wrapped herself. She desired happiness: therefore she told herself that she was happy; she instinctively wished to live honourably: therefore, through her own persuasion, she believed her actions to be honourable. And under this insidiously sheltering garment, her appropriation of her sister's money was securely hidden away. To her own thinking--once the first misgiving had been buried--there was no real wrong, no real dishonour, in the taking of the thousand pounds. She needed it temporarily, and would, in due time, repay it with interest. The fact that she did not think it necessary to inform Nance of what she had done, certainly weakens the case for her defence; but had she come to be judged from some impersonal source, it is quite possible she would have made as subtle and specious a justification of her conduct as that which she offered to herself. In this light, the act stood recorded in her own conscience. She needed the money; she took the money; and having taken it, she set about banishing the recollection of it from her mind.

For three days after she had signed the cheque, she retired into semi-privacy. She was at home to no one; and although she continued to ride each morning and drive each afternoon in the park, she did so with so cold a demeanour that none of her friends had dared to accost her! For three nights she stayed indoors alone; but on the fourth, the insurmountable restlessness that settles so frequently upon the high-spirited woman devoid of home ties, seized on her remorselessly. The thought of further solitude became unendurable--the idea of another lonely evening something not to be borne. At eight o'clock she rose from her solitary dinner, tingling in every nerve for some companionship; and telephoning to Curzon Street, ascertained that Lady Frances Hope was at home and willing to see her. And a quarter of an hour later she stepped from her brougham at the door of the familiar house.

She was informed that Lady Frances was in her own room, preparing to go out, but would be glad to see her if she would come upstairs. She acquiesced quickly; and before the servant could conduct her down the hall, had brushed past him and begun to run up the stairs.

Opening the door of her friend's bedroom, she paused on the threshold, and gave a little exclamation of admiration. Lady Frances Hope was standing before a long mirror, while the maid Rees knelt upon the ground beside her, giving the finishing touches to the skirt of a strikingly beautiful dress.

Clodagh clasped her hands in a gesture of delight; then ran forward into the room.

"How splendid you look!" she cried. "Where are you going? What a heavenly dress!"

Lady Frances smiled.

"At last!" she exclaimed, holding out her cheek to be kissed. "What have you been doing with yourself? I have been persecuted with inquiries for you."

Clodagh laughed excitedly.

"I have been paying bills!" she said in a high, light voice.

"So that you may begin to run up new ones?"

"Quite possibly! But where are you going? All this magnificence makes me curious." She sank into a low chair and glanced with bright, interested eyes at her stately companion.

But Lady Frances ignored her question.

"We shall soon be finished with all vain glories!" she said. "The season is dying--even if it's dying hard. Do you pine for the country, now that the heat has come? I shall expect you to love Tuffnell, you know. It really is quaint! Even I am fond of it."

Clodagh looked up eagerly.

"Of course I shall love Tuffnell. It has been sweet of your sister to ask me there--but it has been sweeter still of her to ask Nance. You don't know what it will be for me to meet Nance down there--away from everything." Her voice fell a little.

Lady Frances laughed pleasantly.

"I am so glad you have arranged that she should come right on from Liverpool, instead of staying in town for a night," she said easily. "It will be much the simpler plan. By the way, what day will we arrange to go down? You and I, I mean? Diana's big dance is on the fifth. Suppose we go down a day or two before?"

Clodagh responded instantly.

"Yes," she said--"yes, certainly. But talking of the dance reminds me of my curiosity. Where _are_ you going to-night?"

This time evasion was impossible. Lady Frances turned to the dressing-table and picked up a diamond ornament.

"You can fix this in, Rees," she said, "and then go. I am going to the Tamperleighs'," she added carelessly, without looking at Clodagh.

"The Tamperleighs'?"

"In Grosvenor Place. Dull people."

Clodagh picked up a fan that was lying on a table near her, and examined it thoughtfully.

"Isn't Lady Tamperleigh an aunt of Sir Walter Gore's?"

"Yes; and old Lord Tamperleigh is a cousin of my mother's--which connects Walter and me in a roundabout way."

There was a slight silence, while Rees hovered about her mistress with one or two last attentions and then quietly left the room. As she closed the door, Clodagh looked up from the fan she had been studying so attentively.

"Lady Frances," she said quickly, "you know Lady Tamperleigh very well?"

Lady Frances' eyes became vigilant.

"Yes," she said vaguely--"oh, yes!"

"Then take me with you to her party--as you took me to the Hensleys' and the Vibrants' last week? I'm wild to go somewhere--to go anywhere to-night." She paused excitedly; then, as her eyes scanned Lady Frances's face, her expression fell.

"Of course if there's the least--the very least--difficulty----"

With a swift, tactful movement, Lady Frances came towards her.

"My dear Clodagh! Don't! You _know_ how proud I am of you. My hesitation was merely----"

"Merely what?"

Lady Frances laid her hand upon Clodagh's shoulder.

"Walter came back from Russia a week ago. He will be there to-night; and I think--I think"--she seemed to hesitate--"I think that perhaps, in view of his narrow ideas, it might be pleasanter for you----" She left the sentence expressively unfinished.

Clodagh rose rather hastily, her face red.

"Of course!" she said--"of course! Sir Walter Gore is the last man in London I should wish to meet."

Lady Frances said nothing, but moving calmly across the room, took her cloak from a chair.

"Where can I drop you?" she asked. "At the club?"

For a second Clodagh stood, staring with very bright eyes at an open window, across which a lace curtain hung motionless in the still, hot air; then she lifted her head and, in her own turn, crossed the room.

"Yes," she said quietly--"yes, at the club."

Not many days later, Clodagh--in company with Lady Frances Hope--left London for Buckinghamshire, on her promised visit to the latter's sister--Lady Diana Tuffnell.

The house party at Tuffnell Place was to include--beside one or two men and women of personal distinction--a small section of Lady Frances Hope's coterie from the merely fashionable world, comprising Lord Deerehurst, Serracauld, and Mrs. Bathurst. For although Lady Diana Tuffnell was very uncompromising in the choice of her own friends, she had always been a complacent sister; and Tuffnell Place generally opened its doors during the month of July to Lady Frances Hope and her intimates.

It was late in the evening when Clodagh arrived; and the old Elizabethan house, with its many windows of thick, small-paned glass and its fine oak-raftered hall, filled her with delight. After she had been greeted by Lady Diana, and introduced to Mr. Tuffnell--a typical, kindly English squire, who invariably went his own way straightly and was content to assume that others did the same--she passed up the shallow staircase and entered the room that had been allotted to her, with a sense of something nearer to happiness than she had known for months. In the whole air of the house and its inmates there was a suggestion of restfulness, of friendliness, of sincerity to which she had been long a stranger. Unconsciously she warmed and softened under the homelike atmosphere. And when, a quarter of an hour later, Simonetta came softly into the bright, chintz-hung bedroom, she found her mistress busily unpacking her writing-case and sorting her letters at an old-fashioned oak writing-table.

That night the two visitors--who had preceded the other members of the house party by a day--dined alone with their host and hostess.

They were a very small party for the great dining-hall; but Clodagh was conscious that at many a crowded restaurant she would have been less well amused. There was a feeling of sincerity in the atmosphere, an honest desire on the part of the entertainers to put their guest at her ease, that precluded dulness and artificiality.

After dinner, Lady Frances wandered off to the billiard-room with her brother-in-law, and Clodagh followed her hostess into the drawing-room--a long, tapestried room full of the scent of roses.

The lamps were lighting when they entered; but the windows were set wide open, admitting the fragrance of the garden. Involuntarily Clodagh crossed the room, and paused beside one of these broad windows.

A moment later her hostess followed her.

"Well, Mrs. Milbanke," she said, "what do you think of England? Isn't it a place to be happy in?" She spoke with something of the strength and domination of her sister; but it was a softened strength, as her face, although possessing the same bold outline as Lady Frances's, was softer, gentler, more sympathetic.

Clodagh turned and looked at her.

"I think it is a place to be _content_ in," she said after a moment's pause.

Lady Diana Tuirnell's glance rested upon her interestedly. And, as the thought of her youth and her mourning rose to her mind, something like pity touched her face.

"You are very right!" she said. "We women make a great mistake in dissociating happiness and contentment. There is too much struggle in many of our lives, and too little peace. Frances, for instance! Her life is one restless race after something that is unattainable!"

"But Lady Frances is happy! She likes struggling!"

Lady Diana smiled.

"She thinks she does. But the truly contented woman does not need to persuade herself that she is satisfied. Happiness is a fact, not an attainment." With a quiet, kindly movement she turned aside and picked up two photographs that stood upon a side-table.

"Mrs. Milbanke, this is the happiness that comes--and stays. The happiness that needs no expounding." She held out the photographs.

Clodagh took them and looked at them. One was the picture of her host; the other the photograph of three plain-looking, honest-eyed boys, who each possessed in an almost ridiculous degree their mother's outline of feature. She looked at them intently for a long time; then she handed them back.

"Thank you!" she said almost inaudibly. Then, moved by a sudden thought, she looked up into Lady Diana's face.

"Lady Diana," she said, "I want you to like my little sister! Will you like her? I don't want her to be one of the struggling women----" Then she paused suddenly, as the drawing-room door opened and Lady Frances Hope entered, followed by her brother-in-law.

At the sound of the opening door, Lady Diana gave her a quick smile of sympathy and understanding; and turned to greet the new-comers.

"What, Frances!" she exclaimed laughingly, as she caught sight of her sister's face. "Has George been beating you?"

Lady Frances came forward frowning.

"How ridiculous you are, Di! Your mind never soars above George." Then, realising that her annoyance had carried her away, she gave a short laugh and suddenly recovered her composure.

"I am angry because our game was spoiled. I was making a really excellent break, when we were interrupted by a stupid telegram from Walter Gore."

Almost abruptly, Clodagh turned back to the open window, conscious that her face and ears were suddenly burning and that her heart had given a great unsteady throb.

Lady Diana looked quickly from her sister to her husband.

"From Walter?" she said in surprise.

"Yes, from Walter." George Tuffnell came forward with an open telegram in his hand. "Listen to this! 'Back from Russia. Town insufferably hot. Gore Bridges in tradesmen's hands. No plans for immediate week. Can you put me up from to-morrow?--WALTER GORE.' Luck, isn't it! Why, we haven't seen him for a year. Dear old Walter!" Tuffnell's good-natured face beamed with hospitable enthusiasm. "What do you say, Di?" he added. "Of course we can manage it?"

"Of course! Why, it will make our party complete." Lady Diana glanced at her sister. But, to her surprise, there was no response in Lady Frances's expression.

With a movement of sudden decision, she had stepped forward.

"Di, wait a moment!" she said. "You know Walter and Val Serracauld never hit it off--and Walter and Deerehurst detest each other. Do you think it would be wise?"

Lady Diana looked perplexed.

"It is a little difficult," she said. "But we cannot refuse Walter." She looked at her husband.

George Tuffnell responded with a laugh.

"Refuse Walter! Why, I'd as soon refuse to have the boys home for the holidays! The house is big enough for everybody! What do you say, Mrs. Milbanke?"

Clodagh turned from the open window. From being red, her face was now very pale.

"I," she stammered--"I----"

Again Tuffnell laughed good-naturedly.

"Certainly! Don't you think, Di, that Mrs. Milbanke could give us an expert opinion on the management of man?"

Clodagh laughed unsteadily. Then, all at once, her mental balance was shaken by a wave of feeling. The thought of Gore--the remembrance of Gore--rose like tangible things, blotting out all else. She lifted her eyes to her host's.

"I agree with you," she swiftly said. "I should say that--that the house is big enough."