"I don't," she insisted. "When a woman confronts you angrily and announces indignantly that she is a victim, it is a satisfaction to turn upon her, with the irrefutable evidence that she is not as much of a victim as you are. I felt a triumphant sense of 'There now!' Just the same, now that she has gone, I could cry all over again as I think of my loss. I put a brave face on the matter, for the sake of appearances. We had tea together, but when she had left, the trouble all came back to me and I think, Archie, that I must have wept myself to sleep."
"I suppose I had better report the case," I suggested.
"It will be waste of time," said Letitia. "Mrs. Archer told me so. Now that Rosie and Nellie have gone, she remembers reading of two crooks who have been robbing apartment houses lately. Like you, dear, she is a bit late."
"I don't know why you speak so slightingly of your husband, Letitia," I interposed haughtily.
"I don't mean to slight you at all, Archie. But you see through a case when it is all over, and Mrs. Archer remembers important information when it is no longer important. That is all, dear. Rosie and Nellie have probably left the city, and the state, taking care to cover their tracks."
"Still for the sake of other possible victims—"
"Never mind them, Archie," said Letitia promptly, "they must take care of themselves as we have had to do. Anyway, now that you are here, and that I have eased myself by telling you all, I feel better. And it is such a relief not to have a patient with a weak heart on one's hands. Positively, dear, I am relieved. It is as though I have shifted a burden. It is almost worth seven hundred and fifty dollars to feel comfortable. You really didn't need the gold whisky flask, and I can get along without the tortoise-shell comb. The diamond ring is a blow, but I intend to forget it. I'll just put on my things and you shall take me out to dinner, and then we'll go to the theater and see something jolly, with rattle in it."
"Sothern's playing Hamlet," I insinuated, "and Shakespeare always cheers you."
"But he wouldn't to-night, Archie. Who shall minister to a mind be-cooked? One must be mentally serene to appreciate Hamlet. I want to forget Mrs. Potzenheimer, and although I adore classics, they don't exhilarate on occasions like these. Would you think me quite dreadful and illiterate, if, instead of Hamlet, I suggest—"
"Mrs. Fiske in Hedda Gabler?"