Gwenna entered the steamy bathroom, to find her chum's tall figure bent in two over the bath and up to its bare elbows in suds of Lux.
"I say, child, you know your locket that you lost at my sister's?" announced Leslie. "It's all right. It's been found."
"Has it?" said Gwenna, not very enthusiastically. "Did I leave it in Mrs. Smith's room?"
"You didn't. You left it in Hugo Swayne's car," said Leslie, wringing out the wet handful of transparent net that would presently serve her as a garment. "That young man came up about half an hour ago to tell you."
"Mr. Swayne did? How kind of him."
"Yes, wasn't it? But not of Mr. Swayne," said Leslie, wringing. "It was—just let out the water and turn me on some fresh hot, will you?—It was the other one that came: the aviator boy."
"What?" cried Gwenna sharply. "Mr. Dampier?"
"Yes. Your bird-man. He came up here—in full plumage and song! Nice grey suit—rather old; brown boots awfully well cleaned—by himself; blue tie, very expensive Burlington Arcade one—lifted from his cousin Hugo, I bet," enlarged Leslie, spreading the blouse out over the white china edge of the bath. "I met him at the gate just as I got back from my old lady's. He asked for my friend—meaning you. Hadn't grasped your name. He came in for ten minutes. But he couldn't wait, Taffy, so——"
Here, straightening herself, Leslie suddenly stopped. She stopped at the sight of the small, blankly dismayed face with which her chum had been listening to this chatter.
And Gwenna, standing aghast against the frosted glass panes of the bathroom door, pronounced, in her softest, most agitated Welsh accent, an everyday Maid's Tragedy in just six words: