Part 41 (1/2)

”No,” I answered, speaking more to myself than to him. ”She--she's had too much to think of. She didn't count her things that night; and at Nevers she didn't open the bag.”

”So much the worse for you, my pet, when she does find out. She left her jewels in your charge. When I came into the room, they were all lyin'

about on the dressin' table, and you were playin' with 'em.”

”I was putting them back into her bag.”

”So you say. Jolly careless of you not to know you hadn't put this thing back. It's about the best of the lot she hadn't got plastered on for the servants' ball.”

”It was careless,” I admitted. ”But it was your fault. You came in, and were so horrid, and upset me so much that I forgot what I'd put into the bag already, and what I hadn't.”

”Lady T. doesn't know I went back to her room.”

”I'll tell her!” I cried.

”I'll bet you'll tell her, right enough. But I can tell a different story. I'll say I didn't go near the room. My story will be that I was walkin' through the woods this afternoon on my way to Charretier's chateau when I saw you with the thing in your hands, lookin' at it.

Probably goin' to ask the shuvver to dispose of it for you--what? and share profits.”

”Oh, you coward!” I exclaimed, and s.n.a.t.c.hed the diamond brooch from him.

Instantly he let go my dress, laughing.

”_That's_ right! That's what I wanted,” he said. ”Now you've got it, and you can keep it. I'll tell Lady T. where to look for it--unless you'll change your mind, and give me that kiss.”

I was so angry, so stricken with horror and a kind of nightmare fear which I had not time to a.n.a.lyze, that I stood silent, trembling all over, with the brooch in my hand. How silly I had been to play his game for him, just like the poor stupid cat who pulled the hot chestnut out of the fire! I don't think any chestnut could ever have been as hot as that bursting sun!

I wanted to drop it in the gra.s.s, or throw it as far as I could see it, but dared not, because it would be my fault that it was lost, and Lady Turnour would believe Bertie's story all the more readily. She would think he had seen me with the jewel, and that I'd hidden it because I was afraid of what he might do.

”To kiss, or not to kiss. _That's_ the question,” laughed Bertie.

”Is it?” said Jack. And Jack's hand, inside Mr. Stokes's beautiful, tall collar, shook Bertie back and forth till his teeth chattered like castanets, and his good-looking pink face grew more and more like a large, boiled beetroot.

I had seen Jack coming, long enough to have counted ten before he came.

But I didn't count ten. I just let him come.

Bertie could not speak: he could only gurgle. And if I had been a Roman lady in the amphitheatre of Nimes, or somewhere, I'm afraid I should have wanted to turn my thumb down.

”What was the beast threatening you with?” Jack wanted to know.

”The beast was threatening to make Lady Turnour think I'd stolen this brooch, which he'd taken himself,” I panted, through the beatings of my heart.

”If you didn't kiss him?”

”Yes. And he was going to do lots of other horrid things, too. Tell Monsieur Charretier--and let my cousins come and find me at the Hotel Athenee, in Paris, and--”

”He won't do any of them. But there are several things I am going to do to him. Go away, my child. Run off to the house, as quick as you can.”

I gasped. ”What are you going to do to him?”