'No, no,' said Mr. Foster, laughing still more; 'but it was a sleeve-link when I first found it among my clothes when I opened my portmanteau in London. I suppose it belonged to my wife, as she is fond of such things, and that it was put up with my things by accident.'
The shawl comfortably pinned round her, Miss Montressor settled herself down to her corner, and neither she nor her companion spoke much more, being occupied with their own reflections. But when Mr. Foster took leave of her, he reminded her of Bryan Duval's last words, and told her that if he were prevented from sailing in the Cuba, he should certainly accompany the theatrical party down to Liverpool, and take leave of them on board.
Miss Montressor had been in very good spirits all day, notwithstanding the annoyance which, as we have seen, one portion of Mr. Foster's communication had caused her. She was agreeably conscious that her looks had been at their best. She was sufficiently refined, more by nature than by education, to recognise a gentleman when she met one, and to enjoy the ease and security conveyed by association with gentlemen. Mr. Foster had struck her from the first as a gentleman; not very brilliant indeed, but kind, courteous, and considerate--the sort of man who did not make women uncomfortable by either his looks or his language--and Miss Montressor appreciated this. She did not belong in the least to the reckless class among her order, and she had an almost morbid longing to be treated like a lady, as she expressed it, without the stately flattery on the one hand, or the freedom and easiness of the other, which ordinarily characterises the manner of the men with whom she habitually associated, and which were just as equally distasteful to her. Mr. Foster had gratified this longing; he had treated her with all the courtesy which he could have extended to the highest social position, and with a confidential fearlessness that had gone to the heart of the woman, who had always been poor in friends. When the pleasant day came to an end, Miss Montressor entered her pretty little house with a light step and a light heart, notwithstanding a vexation about Bess. By this time she had come to think of some means of getting over what would turn up. The day had seemed very short, and yet almost every minute of it had been full of pleasure. She was a little tired--those long pleasant days do tire one, after all--but she was not so cross as usual when, the feverishness of amusement having passed away, she returned to the home enlivened by no kindred presence. She answered her maid cheerfully, as the girl tripped down to the garden-gate at the summons of the bell, and let her mistress in.
'Yes, thank you, Justine, I am all right--rather tired; but we have had a delightful day.'
Justine removed the dainty bonnet and the filmy lace mantle, folded the absurd parasol, which looked like a summer cabbage on a stalk, so flounced and furbelowed was the little silken dummy utterly useless as a sunshade, and while her mistress undid the buttons of her silver-gray silk gown, fetched a white morning robe, in which she clothed her tall full form. During these preliminary operations of her night toilette Miss Montressor talked away gaily--not about the day's proceedings, but about numerous trifles connected with her approaching journey and her sojourn in America. But when her hair had been brushed and the maid's duties were nearly completed, a trifling circumstance occurred which disturbed Miss Montressor's serenity. Her draped dressing-table stood in front of the large window of her bedroom, a French window opening to the floor, and looking out upon the trim little grassy terrace which ran along the back of the house, and from whence the garden, very pretty and effective for its extent, was reached by two steps. On this dressing-table stood her tolerably well-stored jewel-box. Miss Montressor was replacing some ornaments she had worn that day in the satin-lined tray of the casket when she perceived that the window was open, and asked Justine angrily whether she had been aware of this.
'No,' Justine replied; 'she hadn't noticed it.'
'Then you ought to have noticed it,' said Miss Montressor; 'such carelessness is abominable. Any one who pleased might have taken my jewel-box off the table without the least difficulty. The idea of leaving the window open on a Sunday, with no one in the house but yourself and such a lot of tramps about!'
Justine stood convicted, and could only promise that she would be more careful for the future; she was rather saucy sometimes, and ready with an answer to a rebuke, but on this occasion she said very little. There had been no one about the place, and though she had been the only person in the house--the cook and the page having had a holiday--she had hardly left Miss Montressor's room, had indeed been reading at the open window the greater part of the day. But Justine, after her mistress was in bed, while folding up the shawl she had worn that day in so preoccupied a mood that she did not observe the pin with the carved gem for its head which was stuck into the soft woollen fabric, remembered, with a great sense of relief for the escaped danger, how there had come to the house late in the afternoon a man in the dress of a sailor who spoke like an American. This man had been rather hard to get rid of. He had pertinaciously pressed his claim for a little assistance, and had been hard to persuade that the lady was not really at home. 'Just fancy,' thought Justine, 'if he had slunk round to the back of the house and seen the window open, and made off with the jewel-case; and I only wonder he didn't get hold of that or of something, for he was as objectionable a tramp as ever I saw.'
But that she had ever seen this objectionable tramp before, or heard his voice in any other capacity, Justine was totally unconscious; of which testimony to the efficacy of the change of costume the man in the sailor's dress was complacently aware. If Justine's quick eyes were deceived, it would deceive those of other people. A preliminary risk had been successfully run, and the omen was good.