And almost as he spoke the door opened and Zizi came gliding in. Her mode of entering a room was one of her individual characteristics. She slid in softly and unobtrusively, yet one was at once aware of her. It seemed to electrify the atmosphere, and the place was brighter and more vital in feeling. She moved across the room as quietly as a shadow, she said no word, yet her whole presence spoke.
“Hello, Ziz,” and Wise smiled at her. “Watcha want?”
“Mr. Rivers,” she replied, flashing her black eyes at him. “Miss Olive sent me. And she wants the other crystal.”
“A new mystery?” and Wise laughed. “I can’t see through the other crystal! Has it to do with a pair of glasses?”
“No,” and Rivers took out a pocket-book, from which he extracted some flimsy paper. These proved to be tracings of snow crystals similar to those I had seen him drawing while he was still in the hospital.
“How lovely!” Zizi exclaimed, as she took the traced patterns. “You see,” and she showed them to Wise, “Miss Olive is making lace work,—and Mr. Rivers makes her these patterns. Aren’t they exquisite?”
They were. They were forms of snow crystals, than which there is nothing more beautiful, and Rivers had adapted and combined them into a delicate lace-like pattern, which Olive was to copy with linen threads, or whatever women use to make lace out of.
“I was going to take them round,” Rivers said; “I hope the delay hasn’t bothered Miss Raynor.”
“Oh, no,” Zizi assured him, “but she is impatient to see this new design and couldn’t wait. So I offered to run down for it. I knew you were here.”
“But I’m just going up to Miss Raynor’s,” Rivers spoke as if disappointed, “and the patterns are my only excuse for a call! So, if you please, Miss Zizi, I’ll take them to the impatient lady, and I’ll go at once.”