"Oh, well——" he began in a relieved voice.
"Exactly! Lady Frances Hope is here. You remember Lady Frances who married my cousin Sammy Hope—the red-headed little beggar who went into the Navy? She would be intensely interested in Mrs. Milbanke. I wish you would let me make them known to each other."
He smiled suavely, thoroughly in his element at the prospect of working a little social scheme.
Milbanke looked at Clodagh.
"What do you think, my dear?" he asked vaguely.
Clodagh looked down at her plate.
"I don't quite know," she murmured.
Barnard leant close to her in a confiding manner.
"Quite right, Mrs. Milbanke!" he said. "Never trouble to analyse your feelings. Just give them a free rein. Lady Frances Hope is a most charming woman. Always bright, always good-natured, always in the swim—if you understand that very expressive phrase."
Clodagh smiled as she helped herself to an ice. During their conversation, the dinner had drawn to its close; and here and there people were already rising from table and moving towards the hall or the long windows that opened on to the canal. Unconsciously her eyes turned in the direction of these open windows, through which a flood of light streamed out upon the water, bringing into prominence the dark gondolas that flitted perpetually to and fro like great black bats.