"I am horribly sorry, Violet. I give you my word of honour I intended to send Horace the money, but you don't know how pressed I was in September. I have an awfully hard time to make ends meet. Of course, Ned's father is very good to allow me what he does, but the fact is it is practically impossible to live on what I have."
"Yes, as you live, certainly," agreed Mrs. Horace Lancing; "but you could manage splendidly if you did what you ought to do—cut down expenses in every direction, and go into the country. You ought never to have kept on this house."
Camilla moved about the room.
"Oh, that old, old story again!" she exclaimed impatiently. "Don't you know how we threshed out all the ways and means when...?" She hurried on, "Colonel Lancing himself decided that it was best for me to stay on here, and so if you want to quarrel with any one, go to him, Violet; it is no use coming to me...."
Mrs. Horace Lancing got a little red in the face. "I don't want to interfere with you or your arrangements, Heaven knows," she said; "I only want you to be just with us, for, whatever you may say, you know as well as I do that you ought to have paid Horace back as you arranged." There was a little pause. "I shall be very much obliged if you will let me know what you are going to do about this, Camilla. We are not in a position to wait indefinitely. I really came here to-day," Mrs. Horace Lancing said, firmly, "to ask you to let me have some of the money at once."
Camilla stood by the window flicking the long curtains.
This subject, and the recrimination it provoked, made every nerve in her body tingle; in such a moment the sordidness of this perpetual difficulty with money, the ugliness of money itself, settled on her spirit, crushing it down as by some actual physical effort.
The spell of ease and relief that Haverford's generosity had signified had been very brief. After a good deal of deliberation, she had filled in the blank cheque for a thousand pounds.
Her inclination and her necessity had both urged her to make it three times that sum, but she had been temperate, feeling the need of caution. The cheque had gone to her bank the day before, and already she had drawn very largely against it. She dared not drain the money in its entirety, otherwise she would leave herself unprotected should the evil she feared (to meet which she had borrowed this sum) fall upon her.
In casting up her position, she had dealt only with those things that were disagreeably prominent ... and she had absolutely forgotten her obligation to her brother-in-law. She regretted now, impatiently enough, that she had not drawn upon Haverford for a much larger amount. If she were to give Violet even a portion of this debt, she would leave herself without a penny of ready money once more.