DEFEAT
All Clo's efforts and schemings wasted! She had tricked, stolen, risked her life, in vain. The envelope was gone.
"You can't have looked everywhere," she insisted. "The thing must have got tucked out of sight—unless Miss Blackburne ... but no, she's as good as gold!"
"I'm sure you're right about her. She is good," said Beverley. "But ... she says nobody came into the room while she was there.... I asked her. Otherwise I might have thought that Rog——" The sentence broke. "I wanted to see you alone," Angel began again, "so I came back. You've been so wonderful to-day, you've made me depend upon you. If there were anything to do, you'd be the one to do it. But there's nothing ... is there? I can't see any light, can you?"
"Let me help you to look for the envelope," said Clo.
"Come, then," said the other, in a toneless voice, unlike her own. Together they went to Beverley's boudoir, where there was a little interlude of greetings between Clo and Miss Blackburne. Then, Clo was beginning her search for the lost envelope when Roger Sands slowly passed the half-open door. Beverley had left it ajar, not because she wished to call him (that desire had fled with the news about the pearls), but in order to see that he went out. She stood with her back to the door at the moment, but on the wall directly opposite hung a long mirror. Clo guessed, by the slight start Angel gave, that she must have caught sight of his reflection. He turned and came back.
"If he asks to see the pearls!" was the thought in Clo's head. Her eyes met Beverley's and read the same terror there.
Roger spoke to Miss Blackburne, pausing on the threshold.
"What do you think of the baubles?" he asked with elaborate carelessness. "Are they above the average?"
The two girls held their breath. Would the pearl-stringer give the situation away?