She bent her head, feeling that she had. Oh, feeling it terribly just then.
"Is this all you owe? All?"
"Y—es." But the falsehood, as falsehoods ought to, left a tremor on her lips.
Without speaking another word, he unsealed a paper in which were enclosed some bank-notes, and handed several to her, to the amount of two hundred pounds. "Understand me well, Selina, this must never occur again," he said, in an impressive tone. "These notes had a different and an urgent destination."
"What a goose I was, not to ask for the other hundred!" was her mental comment, as she escaped from the room. "It is not of the least use offering Damereau two hundred: but she might take three. And where am I to get it?"
Where, indeed? Did the reader ever try when in extremity to borrow a hundred pounds, or what not?—and does he remember how very hopeless a cause it seemed when present before him? Just as it appeared now to Selina Dalrymple.
"I wonder whether Alice could lend it to me?" she cried, swaying her foot helplessly as she sat in the low chair. "It's not in the least likely, but I might ask her. Who's this?"
The "Who's this," applied to a footstep on the stairs. It was her husband's. Some tiresome, troublesome old man of their acquaintance had come up from Netherleigh, and Oscar wanted his wife to help entertain him. Remembering the two hundred pounds just procured from Oscar she did not like to refuse, and went down.
They dined, to accommodate this gentleman, at what Selina called an unearthly hour—four o'clock; and it was evening before she could get to Lady Sarah Hope's. Alice, looking ill, was alone in the drawing-room, having begged to be excused going down to dinner. On a table in the back room lay some of Lady Sarah's jewels; valuable gems. Selina privately wished they were hers. She had to take her departure as she came, for Alice could not help her. A curiously mysterious matter connected with these jewels has to be related. It ought to come in here; but it may be better to defer it, not to interfere with the sequence of events connected with this chapter.
Nothing further could be done that evening, and Selina went to rest betimes—eleven o'clock—disappointing two or three entertainments that were languishing for her presence: but she had no heart that night.