“I am the best judge of that.”
“Cecil, are you lending money to that man?”
The words leapt out, as on occasion such words will leap, without thought or premeditation on the speaker’s part. She did not intend to speak them; if she had given herself one moment for reflection she dared not have spoken them; when their sound struck across the quiet room she was almost as much startled as Cecil herself; yet heart and brain approved their utterance; heart and brain pronounced that she had discovered the truth.
Cecil’s face was a deep glowing red.
“Really, Claire, you go too far! Why in the world should you think—”
“I saw you with him now in the street. I could see that you were quarrelling; you took no pains to hide it. You left him to come in to me, and went back again. It seems pretty obvious.”
“Well! and if I did?” Cecil had plainly decided that denial was useless. “I am responsible for the loan. What does it matter to you who uses it?”
But at that Claire’s anger vanished, and she shrank back with a cry of pain and shame.
“And he took it from you? Money! Took it from a girl he professes to love—who is working for herself! Oh, Cecil, how could he? How could you allow him? How can you go on caring for such a man?”
“Don’t get hysterical, Claire, please. There’s nothing so extraordinary in a man being hard up. It’s happened before now in the history of the world. Frank has a position to keep up, and his father—I’ve told you before how mean and difficult his father is, and it’s so important that Frank should keep on good terms just now.—He dare not worry him for money. When he is going to make me a rich woman some day, why should I refuse to lend him a few trifling pounds when he runs short? He’s in an expensive regiment; he belongs to an expensive Club; he is obliged to keep up with the other men. If I had twice as much I would lend it with pleasure.”