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.