She was such a very respectable sort of little woman, and the atmosphere of the place was so very tranquil, that Mr. Donalds felt somewhat abashed.
“No, thank you,” he said. “I’m looking for a woman with red hair and a child in a pink hat.”
Suddenly the whole thing seemed to him so fantastic that he was almost apologetic—until he observed that the woman’s face grew very pale.
“Ha!” he cried. “I see you know something of this! Then—”
“I—I—I—” she faltered. “You must be mistaken. I—I never heard of them. They’ve gone away.”
“You contradict yourself, madam!” said Mr. Donalds sternly. “Come, tell me what you know—at once!”
“I—I—I—” said she, trembling with an alarm which he could not but think guilty. “Oh! Please go away!”
“Go away!” he repeated, affronted and amazed. “I have come here for the purpose of—”
She began to cry. Mr. Donalds had not been an employer of great numbers of female stenographers for years and years without learning to withstand tears. In fact, he had formed the notion that women generally cried whenever they had made a mistake, and that it was a feminine way of apologizing.
“Come, come!” he said. “Tell me where the child is—immediately!”