The bell rang off. Louis Ravengar had finished his good-bye. Hugo tried in vain to resume communication with him. He could not even get any sort of reply from the Exchange.
'It's a queer world,' he soliloquized, as he returned to bed. 'What does the man mean?'
He was still happy in the prospect of finding Camilla, but it was as though his happiness were a pool in a private ground, and some trespasser had troubled it with a stone.
The clock struck ten, and Simon entered with tea and the paper.
CHAPTER XXI
SUICIDE
The paper contained a whole-page advertisement of Hugo's great annual sale, and also a special half-page advertisement headed 'Hugo's Apology and Promise'—a message to the public asking pardon of the public for the confusion, inconvenience, and disappointments of the previous day, hinting that the mystery of the affair would probably be elucidated in a criminal court, and stating that a prodigious number of silvered fox-stoles would positively be available from nine o'clock that morning at a price even lower than the figure named in the original announcement. The message further stated that a special Complaint Office had been opened as a branch of the Inquiry Bureau, and that all complaints by customers who had suffered on New Year's Day would there be promptly and handsomely dealt with.
In addition to Hugo's advertisements, there were several columns of news describing the singular phenomena of the sale, concluding with what a facetious reporter had entitled 'Interviews with Survivors.'
As he read the detailed accounts Hugo knew, perhaps for the first time in his life, what it was 'to go hot and cold all over.' However, he was decidedly inclined to be optimistic.