When the rest had gone down to dress for dinner, which was being sent
in, thank goodness, I still sat on the parapet and watched the darkening
river. I felt terribly lonely, all at once, and sad. There wasn't any
one any nearer than father, in the West, or mother in Bermuda, who
really cared a rap whether I sat on that parapet all night or not,
or who would be sorry if I leaped to the dirty bricks of the next
door-yard--not that I meant to, of course.
The lights came out across the river, and made purple and yellow streaks
on the water, and one of the motor boats came panting back to the yacht
club, coughing and gasping as if it had overdone. Down on the street
automobiles were starting and stopping, cabs rolling, doors slamming,
all the maddening, delightful bustle of people who are foot-free to
dine out, to dance, to go to the theater, to do any of the thousand
possibilities of a long February evening. And above them I sat on the
roof and cried. Yes, cried.
I was roused by some one coughing just behind me, and I tried to
straighten my face before I turned. It was Flannigan, his double row of
brass buttons gleaming in the twilight.
"Excuse me, miss," he said affably, "but the boy from the hotel has left
the dinner on the doorstep and run, the cowardly little divil! What'll
I do with it? I went to Mrs. Wilson, but she says it's no concern of
hers." Flannigan was evidently bewildered.
"You'd better keep it warm, Flannigan," I replied. "You needn't wait;
I'm coming." But he did not go.
"If--if you'll excuse me, miss," he said, "don't you think ye'd betther
tell them?"
"Tell them what?"
"The whole thing--the joke," he said confidentially, coming closer.
"It's been great sport, now, hasn't it? But I'm afraid they will get on
to it soon, and--some of them might not be agreeable. A pearl necklace
is a pearl necklace, miss, and the lady's wild."
"What do you mean?" I gasped. "You don't think--why, Flannigan--"
He merely grinned at me and thrust his hand down in his pocket. When
he brought it up he had Bella's bracelet on his palm, glittering in the
faint light.
"Where did you get it?" Between relief and the absurdity of the thing,
I was almost hysterical. But Flannigan did not give me the bracelet;
instead, it struck me his tone was suddenly severe.
"Now look here, miss," he said; "you've played your trick, and you've
had your fun. The Lord knows it's only folks like you would play April
fool jokes with a fortune! If you're the sinsible little woman you look
to be, you'll put that pearl collar on the coal in the basement tonight,
and let me find it."