“My dear child,” she exclaimed, as Clara came into the room, “what have you been doing with yourself? You look ghastly!”
Clara shrugged her shoulders, and looked at herself in a mirror.
“I do look chippy, don’t I?” she remarked. “I’ve been spending the week-end down at Bristow.”
“At Bristow?” Berenice repeated. Her voice spoke volumes. Clara looked up a little defiantly.
“Yes! We had an awful spree! I like it there immensely, only—”
Berenice looked up.
“I notice,” she remarked, “that there is generally an ‘only’ about people who have spent week-ends at Bristow. They play cards there, don’t they, until daylight? Some one once told me that they kept a professional croupier for roulette!”
“That horrid game!” Clara exclaimed. “Please don’t mention it. I’ve scarcely slept a wink all night for thinking of it.”
Berenice looked at her in surprise.
“Do you mean to say,” she inquired, deliberately, “that they allowed you to play—and lose?”
“It wasn’t their fault I lost,” Clara answered. “Oh, what a fool I was. Bobby Bristow showed me a system. It seemed so easy. I didn’t think I could possibly lose. It worked beautifully at first. I thought that I was going to pay all my bills, and have lots of money to spend. Then I doubled the stakes—I wanted to win a lot—and everything went wrong!”
“How much did you lose?” Berenice asked. Clara shivered.
“Don’t ask me!” she cried. “Sir Leslie Borrowdean gave his own cheques for all my I.O.U.’s. He is coming to see me some time to-day. I don’t know what I shall say to him.”
“Do you mean to go on playing?” Berenice asked, quietly, “or is this experience enough for you?”
“I shall never sit at a roulette table again as long as I live,” she declared. “I hate the very thought of it.”
“Then you can just ask Sir Leslie the amount of the I.O.U.’s, and tell him that he shall have a cheque in the morning,” Berenice said. “I will lend you the money.”
Clara gave a little gasp.
“You are too kind,” she exclaimed, “but I don’t know when I shall be able to repay you. It is—nearly three hundred pounds!”
“So long as you keep your word,” Berenice answered, “and do not play again, you need never let that trouble you. You shall have the cheque before two o’clock. No, please don’t thank me. If you take my advice you won’t spend another week-end at Bristow. It is not a fit house for young girls. How is your uncle?”
“I haven’t seen him this morning,” Clara answered. “Perkins told me that he came home after midnight with a man whom he seemed to have picked up in the street, and they were in the study talking till nearly five this morning.”
Berenice rose.
“I came to see if you would care to drive down to Ranelagh with me this morning,” she said, “but you are evidently fit for nothing except to go back to bed again. I won’t forget the cheque, and remember me to your uncle. By the bye, where’s that nice young man who used to be always with you down in the country?”