Would it not be better, by the way, for you to send your letter to me, and
allow me to forward it to your brother? and if you would like to send him
fifty pounds, or a hundred, I shall be only too proud to be your banker."
Clarissa blushed crimson, remembering that scene in the orchard, and her
baffled lover's menaces. Had he forgiven her altogether, and was this kind
interest in her affairs an unconscious heaping of coals of fire on her
head? Had he forgiven her so easily? Again she argued with herself, as she
had so often argued before, that his love had never been more than a truant
fancy, a transient folly, the merest vagabondage of an idle brain.
"You are very good," she said, with a tinge of hauteur, "but I could not
think of borrowing money, even to help my brother. If you will kindly tell
me the best method of remitting money to Paris."
Here, Mr. Fairfax said, there was a difficulty; it ought to be remitted
through a banker, and Mrs. Granger might find this troublesome to arrange,
unless she had an account of her own. Clarissa said she had no account, but
met the objection by suggesting bank notes; and Mr. Fairfax was compelled
to own that notes upon the Bank of England could be converted into French
coin at any Parisian money-changer's.
He gave Clarissa the address, 13, Rue du Chevalier Bayard, near the
Luxembourg.
"I will write to him to-night," she said, and then rose from the rustic
bench among the laurels.
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