“Better make up your mind to order another. Something tells me you’ll never see that particular animal again.”
“How silly, Phil, of course I will. They don’t have kleptomaniacs in a Club like this.”
“People of acquisitive tendencies are to be found everywhere. However, here comes Herron with the pelt, but he looks as if he’d had to fight for it!”
Sure enough, Herron appeared, greatly ruffled. His face was red, his eyes glowering, and his whole aspect that of a man who has been through a war of words.
“All right,” he said, with a very evident effort to seem at ease, “here’s your fur cape,—or whatever you call it.”
“Stole,” corrected Philip.
“No it wasn’t!” cried Herron. “Mrs. Doremus had mislaid it, in her excitement, and couldn’t remember for the moment where it was. But she found it at once.”
He put the fur round Patty’s neck, and assisted her into the sleigh in silence.
“Something’s up!” that astute young woman remarked to herself. “I must find out about it,—that is, if it concerns me, and I pretty much think it does.”
But she was far too canny to ask questions of Herron then. She chatted gaily and smiled brightly, telling herself the while, that there could be nothing really wrong.