"Pajamas!" I ejaculated, startled.
For all day I had been thinking of her. I wondered if Billings would happen to think to invite me up for the week end. But he had so many times, and I had never gone.
"By Jove, that reminds me," I said. "Those red silk pajamas!"
"Yes, sir." Jenkins' face hardened in an odd, wooden way.
"I was wondering, Jenkins, if those pajamas were torn any in our little row the other night."
Poor Jenkins winced a little. "I think not, sir," he muttered humbly—"leastwise, they were all right last night when Mr.—" He seemed to catch himself abruptly. "I mean when I found them this morning, sir."
He returned with the garments I had received from Mastermann, and again we spread them under the lamp on the table. They looked singularly smooth and unwrinkled. There was not a single tear or break, not even with the delicate cords that twisted to form the frogs of the coat.
"My, sir! But ain't they red!" breathed Jenkins. "Them cords look like little red snakes."
I cut an anxious glance at Jenkins, for I did not like his reference to snakes. Seemed ominous, somehow. But his appearance was composed and reassuring. And, by Jove, come to look, the cords did look just like tiny, coiled serpents of glowing fire. Why, they were so jolly red they hurt your eyes. Fact! And thin as the beautiful stuff was, this brighter red ran all over the other, covering every inch of it and forming the closest, finest what-you-call-it embroidery. It was as faint and dainty a pattern as that on a soap bubble! Fact is, I could not trace it, even with my glass.
The only part that wasn't covered with this embroidery business was the stuff used to cover the knots, or little balls, over which the cords were meant to hook. In working with some of these cords, idly fastening and unfastening them, I got a little impatient with one that seemed tight, you know, and I used my manicure knife to pull the knot through.