"No."
"Really?"
"No—it wasn't Oku." She hesitated a moment; as if still unwilling to disclose the real culprit, Finally she said: "We—we did—it."
An expression of amused surprise came over his face, as he echoed:
"Did we?"
He looked from one to the other, his glance finally failing on Fanny. Alarmed at his scrutiny, she hurriedly pointed to her sister and her fiancé:
"Not me! Them!" she exclaimed.
Stafford smiled. Although it meant a serious loss, to say nothing of the blow to his pride as a collector he was too much the man of the world to betray annoyance or to permit a little accident of that kind to spoil the evening's enjoyment. Courteously he said:
"It doesn't matter in the least."
Ashamed to hide behind a woman's skirts any longer, Jimmie now came forward. In a halfhearted fashion, he said: