“You will take the money—you want it, I know you do,” said Lady Ursula.
“But even if I do you will be no better off at the end of a week. In fact, you will be worse off, for you will have been all that time deliberately deceiving the man you intend to marry.”
“Oh, don’t begin to lecture me! Let the end of the week take care of itself! Here are thirty pounds! Give me the ring for a week!”
“I shall do very wrong.”
“Do wrong then! Take your money! You are looking greedily at it! Take it, you long for it!”
“I do long for it,” I answered. “If I take it, Lady Ursula, it will avert such a storm as girls like you can never even picture. It will save—Oh, have you a mother, Lady Ursula?”
“Of course I have. I don’t see her very often. She is at Cannes now.”
“If I take the money,” I said, “it will be only for a week, remember.”
“Very well. Of course you will take it. Out with your purse. Nay, though, you shall have a new purse, and one of mine. What do you say to this, made of red Russian leather? Here go the notes, and here the gold. Pop the purse into your pocket. Now, don’t you feel nice? We have both got what we want, and we can both be happy for a week.”
“I will come back in a week,” I said. I felt so mean when that thirty pounds lay in my pocket that I could scarcely raise my eyes. For the first time the difference of rank between Lady Ursula and myself oppressed me. For the first time I was conscious of my shabby dress, my rough boots, my worn gloves. “Good-bye, Lady Ursula,” I said.