“No; they are not real gold. At least, I mean mine was not. It was gilt over silver, and cost only about twelve or fourteen dollars when new.”
“What did you usually carry in it?”
“What every woman carries in such a bag. Handkerchief, some small change, perhaps a vanity-box, gloves, tickets—whatever would be needed on an afternoon's calling or shopping tour.”
“Miss Lloyd, you have enumerated almost exactly the articles in this bag.”
“Then that is a coincidence, for it is not my bag.”
The girl was entirely self-possessed again, and even a little aggressive.
I admit that I did not believe her statements. Of course I could not be sure she was telling untruths, but her sudden embarrassment at the first sight of the bag, and the way in which she regained her self-possession, made me doubt her clear conscience in the matter.
Parmalee, who had come over and sat beside me, whispered: “Striking coincidence, isn't it?”
Although his sarcasm voiced my own thoughts, yet it irritated me horribly to hear him say it.
“But ninety-nine women out of a hundred would experience the same coincidence,” I returned.