"Take me home!" ordered Tessie, in her most royal manner.
But the chauffeur only showed his teeth. They made a white streak in his yellow face as he motioned toward the door of the red brick house.
"Ka-kee-ta," he said very slowly and distinctly. "You want Ka-kee-ta?"
"Ka-kee-ta!" That was a very different pair of shoes. So Miss Kingley, or perhaps it was Mrs. Kingley, had found Ka-kee-ta—although what he was doing away down here, miles from the Waloo, Tessie could not imagine—and had sent the chauffeur to take her to him. How kind! How very kind of the Kingleys. She jumped up, eager questions tumbling from her lips. "Why is he here? Why didn't he come home? Is he hurt?" For she was sure that nothing but an injury would keep Ka-kee-ta away from her and from the Tear of God. She was glad she had the Tear of God in the safety bag around her waist. She could show Ka-kee-ta that it was safe. Her face whitened as she thought that Ka-kee-ta might be, must be, badly injured. But still she hesitated to go to him. She stood on the running board of the car and looked up and down the narrow little street.
"Ka-kee-ta, he want you!" exclaimed the chauffeur, and he would have taken her arm to help her, but she pushed him away. She had taken a dislike to him, she did not know why, but she did not want him to touch her, although it was kind of him to bring her to Ka-kee-ta.
She glanced at the red brick house. Was that Ka-kee-ta's frizzled head at an upper window? It looked like it. So he was not badly injured, or he would not be at the window. She drew a long breath of relief. She would go and see what was the matter with him, and if it was nothing serious, she would give him a good big piece of her mind for worrying her. Of course, a queen would have to look after her bodyguard even if her bodyguard had been disobedient and careless. Indeed she would tell Ka-kee-ta what she thought of him.
She stepped forward hurriedly, and in her eagerness to tell Ka-kee-ta how disobedient he had been, she dropped her little beaded bag. It fell from the big embroidered pocket of her Canton crepe frock and rolled under the car, but Tessie never knew it. The chauffeur, who was close at her side, never knew it, either.
The door of the red brick house opened before Tessie could ring the bell, and she went in. The chauffeur waited until the door closed behind her, and then ran back to his car. He jumped in and drove rapidly away. The small boy in search of his ball had to wait a minute, until the car had dashed away. And then he saw the beaded bag lying in the street beside the curb and beside the ball.
"Crickey!" he exclaimed, holding it up for the other boys to see. "Look what I found!"
There was no one in the hall as the outside door closed behind Tessie. She stood still for a second, feeling very small and neglected. Since she became a queen, she had been met at front doors with more or less ceremony, and it puzzled her that no one met her now. There was a door at her right. She walked toward it. She could not remember at just which window she had caught that glimpse of a frizzled head. Perhaps Ka-kee-ta was in the room at the right. But when she opened the door, she did not see Ka-kee-ta. She saw Frederic Pracht.