In a dazed way she thought of David Barnard, who had returned a month previously from a holiday in Spain; but her pride made her shrink sensitively from the thought of the suave indulgence with which he would listen to her confession of folly. Once the thought of recalling Lady Frances Hope, and explaining the position to her, sped through her mind; but she dismissed it as swiftly as it came. In restless perturbation she turned and walked across the room, pausing once more beside the bureau, which stood in a recess between the windows.
Where could she turn, where look, for the money that would tide over her difficulties? In her mental distraction, she laid aside the bills she was still holding, and aimlessly picked up a half-dozen opened letters that lay awaiting answers. A couple of invitations to lunch; an invitation to play bridge; the offer of a box at the opera; Laurence Asshlin's monthly report from Orristown; Nance's last letter from America.
With a vague preoccupation she raised the last of these and looked at it.
How free and unhampered Nance seemed in her inexperience of life! She looked unseeingly at the closely written lines, her mind in a harassed way contrasting her own and her sister's fate. Then quite suddenly she dropped the letter and lifted her head.
A thought had struck her. As a flash of lightning might rend a night sky, an inspiration had illuminated the darkness of her mind. The thousand pounds which was to be Nance's property when she came of age, or upon her engagement, still lay to her own credit—in her own name—in the bank with which Milbanke had done business.
It is extraordinary how rapidly a thought can mature in a receptive mind. In one moment, as Clodagh stood beside the bureau, all the possibilities comprised in that thousand pounds broke upon her understanding.
How if she withdrew it as a loan? No one—not even Nance herself—need know; and she could refund it within six months, or within a year—long before the thought of marriage could enter the child's mind.
Then suddenly she paused in her mental calculations; and a new expression passed over her face. Was it right, was it honourable, to make use of this money left in her safe-keeping?
Uneasy and distressed, she turned to the open window, as though a study of the life beyond her own might help her in her dilemma. The scene she looked upon was interesting and even beautiful. The grass of the park still retained something of its first greenness; in the distance the clustering bower of chestnuts and copper beeches suggested something far removed from the traffic and toil of the great town; while below the window, under a canopy of leaves, the morning procession of horses and carriages passed incessantly to and fro.
What a curious world it was! How conventional and obvious, and yet in reality how inscrutable! What would it say of her, did it know her true position? What comfort—what aid—would it offer? Involuntarily, almost curiously, she laid her finger-tips upon the window-sill and bent slightly forward. Then, very suddenly, she drew back into the room, her face flushing.