We soothed the Chaperon's fears as well as we could; but when half-past ten came, and there were still no signs of the missing ones, we both began to be troubled.
"If they don't appear in ten minutes, I'll drive slowly in the direction by which they should return," I said; but the words had hardly left my lips when the girls walked into the hall, with Tibe. Both charming faces were flushed, and it was evident that something exciting had happened. But whatever it was, nobody was the worse for it. Tibe flew to his mistress, knocking down a child, and almost upsetting an old gentleman by darting unexpectedly between his legs, while the girls rushed into explanations.
"We're so sorry to have kept you waiting, but we've had such an adventure!" cried Nell. "We were driving back from the 'village,' when Tibe gave a leap and jumped out of the cab before we could hold him."
"We were terrified," broke in Phyllis.
"And he disappeared in the most horribly mysterious way," finished Nell.
"We thought some one in the crowd must have stolen him, so we stopped the cab——"
"And began tearing about looking for him, asking every human being in every known language except Dutch, if they'd seen a dog, or a chien, or a hund——"
"But nobody understood, so we went into a lot of shops, and he wasn't in any of them——"
"And we were in despair. We shouldn't have dared come back without him——"
"I should think not!" cut in the Chaperon.