"You have some trouble," Hetty said anxiously.
"I have," Gordon said, "but I shan't tell it to you today. Let us talk of something else. Let us forget the world for ourselves."
A band was playing somewhere; there were voices pitched high close by; then came the clear laugh of Lady Longmere.
"Say, what a comedy!" she said. "What does it matter? It will be something to say afterwards that we knew the woman."
"I can't believe it," said Lady Rockingham. "Mr. Harcourt, are you quite clear and certain of your facts? Who told you?"
"Shouldn't dare to speak thus of the fascinating Lalage," Harcourt, the little man with the eyeglass, drawled. "Should be afraid of a knife in my back, or something horribly Corsican of that kind. Can't tell you any more except I know the police had a warrant for her arrest, and that she's bolted."
"And she's got a diamond star of mine worth a thousand pounds!" Lady Rockingham screamed. "A stone was missing, and she offered to have it replaced for me out of her stock of loose diamonds. I made a friend of that woman, a vulgar adventuress, who steals brooches and the like."
"Be a lesson to us all," Harcourt said sapiently, "for at least a month. And then we shall run after the next flashy adventurer who comes along. Give me the money, and I'll put any gutter flower-girl in society, and at the top of all in a month. It's only a question of cash."
The speaker passed on. Hetty seemed amused about something.
"So the story has leaked out," she said. "But it has its funny side. Fancy Leona Lalage getting Lady Rockingham's star like that! It was the sort of cynical thing she would have enjoyed."