A tall slim figure came towards her from the gardens, walking with easy assurance among the shadowy flowerbeds. Charles heaved himself up on his cushion, and barked weightily in a strangled manner. Miss Ashington, looking about for the cause, said:
"Well--well--well--it's only our dear Pamela--what a fuss--what a fuss."
Charles choked in his endeavours to express disapproval, and "our dear Pamela" came up to the piazza and greeted his mistress.
She said it was a lovely evening, but her feet were wet with the dew; she leaned against a pillar, and, turning up one slim foot, looked at the sole of her shoe. Miss Ashington looked at it also, in a vague kind of manner--she could not see, but she was disturbed to know it was wet.
"Surely it is late for you to be out, dear child," said Auntie A., "hush, Charles, be quiet, you know very well who it is--now let me call Dickens and she will find you dry shoes--what about Mollie's--I really cannot allow----"
"But I must go back at once," said the girl, "please do not call anyone," as Miss Ashington hunted on her table for the brass hand-bell that was supposed to be at her elbow, but was always underneath other things, "please do not. I came from my mother to say, may she have the safety-pin brooch with the diamond crown that Adrian found on the cliff--that she sent to you--because the owner is found."
"Ah, the brooch with A initials--yes--yes--yes--now where," murmured Auntie A. "I think I had better ring for Dickens----" she hunted for the bell and the table fell over.
Charles coughed himself into convulsions.
"Dear, dear--if you can find the bell--please ring it, dear child."
"Dear child" was on her knee hunting, with the bell safely covered by her skirt. She was searching among the overturned articles with the desperate hope of finding what she came for, instinct suggesting that it might easily be actually on the table.