Lady Frances laid her hand upon Clodagh's shoulder.
"Walter came back from Russia a week ago. He will be there to-night; and I think—I think"—she seemed to hesitate—"I think that perhaps, in view of his narrow ideas, it might be pleasanter for you——" She left the sentence expressively unfinished.
Clodagh rose rather hastily, her face red.
"Of course!" she said—"of course! Sir Walter Gore is the last man in London I should wish to meet."
Lady Frances said nothing, but moving calmly across the room, took her cloak from a chair.
"Where can I drop you?" she asked. "At the club?"
For a second Clodagh stood, staring with very bright eyes at an open window, across which a lace curtain hung motionless in the still, hot air; then she lifted her head and, in her own turn, crossed the room.
"Yes," she said quietly—"yes, at the club."
Not many days later, Clodagh—in company with Lady Frances Hope—left London for Buckinghamshire, on her promised visit to the latter's sister—Lady Diana Tuffnell.
The house party at Tuffnell Place was to include—beside one or two men and women of personal distinction—a small section of Lady Frances Hope's coterie from the merely fashionable world, comprising Lord Deerehurst, Serracauld, and Mrs. Bathurst. For although Lady Diana Tuffnell was very uncompromising in the choice of her own friends, she had always been a complacent sister; and Tuffnell Place generally opened its doors during the month of July to Lady Frances Hope and her intimates.