“Dear me!” she said gently. “Not your pearls, I hope, Clarissa?”
“Yes, my necklace; the double row with the dragon clasp.”
“Dragon clasp!” repeated Nouna quickly.
“Yes, it had a very uncommon clasp: a dragon in diamonds, with ruby eyes.”
Nouna stared at her with open mouth, in a manner which would have excited remark in anybody but this eccentric little person; but she offered no further observation, although she remained seated near the elderly ladies, considering Lady Florencecourt’s face with deep interest, until the boys came in for a dull half-hour in the drawing-room. To them the lively little lady was an unexpected blessing. By the time the butler marched in with a huge Bible and Prayer-book, Nouna was sitting on a sofa, with Regie leaning over her shoulder and Bertie’s arms round her neck, to the great scandal of Lady Florencecourt, who regarded her sons rather as a handsome present she had made to their father than with any more vulgarly maternal feeling, and who would have been shocked at such a breach of filial respect as a spontaneous hug.
Nouna, who found nothing very exhilarating in the assembled company after the departure of the boys, seized the very first opportunity to retire, and was up stairs before anybody else. When her husband followed a little later, he found the door of the room wide open, the candles flickering and guttering in the draught, but no Nouna. Her jewel-case was open on the dressing-table, and the contents were scattered about in reckless disorder, a bracelet lying on the floor, a diamond earring glistening on the top of a high-heeled boot, a couple of rings embedded in a hairbrush. George looked into the dressing-room, and then went back into the corridor, where he heard a long way off the rattling of the Fiji shells on his wife’s dress. He drew back into the room, and received her in his arms as she rushed through the door like a whirlwind. She gave a little cry when he caught her.
“Where have you been?” he asked.
“Where have I been? Oh, nowhere; only speaking to Lady Florencecourt’s maid.”
“What about?”
“Nothing. I wish you had let me bring Sundran; I can’t do my own hair.”