"Yes. Of course you are, and it is quite natural and I quite understand, and I do not blame you in the least. But such a dreadful thing has happened. I hardly know how I can tell you about it. It is really too dreadful for words."
Wimpole sat down and fanned himself slowly with the Paris Herald. He was still rather pale, for his nerves had been shaken.
"Rachel, my dear," he said mildly, "don't be silly. Tell me what is the matter."
Miss Wimpole walked slowly once round the room, stopped at the window and looked through the blinds, and at last turned and faced her brother with all the energy of her seasoned character.
"Richard," she began, "don't call me silly till you hear. It's awful. That boy suddenly appeared in a shop where Sylvia was buying a hat, and paid for it and vanished."
"Eh? What's that?" asked Wimpole, opening his eyes wide. "I don't think I quite understood, Rachel. I must have been thinking of something else, just then."
"I daresay you were," replied his sister, severely. "You are growing dreadfully absent-minded. You really should correct it. I say that when Sylvia was buying a hat, just now, Archie Harmon suddenly appeared in the shop and spoke to us. Then he asked Sylvia whether she liked the hat she was trying on, and she said she did. Then he went off, and when we wished to pay we were told that the hat had been paid for by the young gentleman. Now--"
The colonel interrupted and startled his sister by laughing aloud at this point. He could not help it, though he had not felt in the least as though he could laugh at anything for a long time, when he had entered the room. Miss Wimpole was annoyed.
"Richard," she said solemnly, "you surprise me."
"Does it not strike you as funny?" asked the colonel, recovering.