"Well, will you please tell her that Mr Chadwick—Thomas Chadwick—wants to speak to her?"
"Is it about the purse?" the servant questioned, suddenly brightening into eager curiosity.
"Never you mind what it's about, miss," said Thomas Chadwick, sternly.
At the same moment Mrs Clayton Vernon's grey-curled head appeared behind the white cap of the servant. Probably she had happened to catch some echo of Thomas Chadwick's great rolling voice. The servant retired.
"Good-evening, m'm," said Thomas Chadwick, raising his hat airily. "Good-evening." He beamed.
"So you did find it?" said Mrs Vernon, calmly smiling. "I felt sure it would be all right."
"Oh, yes, m'm." He tried to persuade himself that this sublime confidence was characteristic of great ladies, and a laudable symptom of aristocracy. But he would have preferred her to be a little less confident. After all, in the hands of a conductor less honourable than himself, of a common conductor, the purse might not have been so "all right" as all that! He would have preferred to witness the change on Mrs Vernon's features from desperate anxiety to glad relief. After all, £50, 10s. was money, however rich you were!
"Have you got it with you?" asked Mrs Vernon.
"Yes'm," said he. "I thought I'd just step up with it myself, so as to be sure."
"It's very good of you!"