“Come to me quickly, I am frightened and ill. Start at once. I hear your voice calling to me, and I have not money enough to come.”
As George read these words his sight failed him, and a great sob shook his whole frame. Chloris tried to take back the two scraps of flimsy paper, but he thrust them into his breast.
“No, they are mine,” he said in a broken voice.
She shrugged her shoulders.
“As you like,” said she in a hard tone. “After all I have a better consolation than you have.”
George looked at her inquiringly.
“I was born ambitious,” she continued, “as the unlucky daughter of a princess had a right to be. I centred my ambition unselfishly on my daughter; you and she frustrated me. Well, I can still be Viscountess Florencecourt—and I will.”
George pulled himself together to make a good fight for his old friend. This devil-may-care creature, who was beginning to find the oft-tried excitements fail, was just in the mood to plunge head foremost into the delights of starting a new and sensational scandal. George took care to speak with the greatest calmness.
“I don’t think you will, though, when you think about it. You are too clever.”
“I am too clever to fail to do so, I flatter myself.”