Mrs. Walbridge shook her head. "No, this is the last of the three. I—I dare say I shall hear from them shortly."
Caroline Breeze went back to her room, and dressed and prepared to go on her, to her, so strange and adventurous errand.
No one saw Mrs. Walbridge come home, and the morning dragged along with its usual round of dull duties, until about half past ten, when Miss Breeze arrived, her long queer figure, in her tight-fitting jacket edged with strips of shabby mink, and her oddly rakish hat decorated with a scrap of gold lace and a big bunch of pink roses.
"I've been, dear," she burst out eagerly, as she came into the attic room, where her friend sat at her work-table, "and I've got fifty-two pounds. Isn't it splendid?"
Mrs. Walbridge's face fell. "Oh, thanks—that's very good," she said, "and I'm so grateful to you, Caroline."
"It wasn't a bit like what I had expected," Miss Breeze explained, unbuttoning her jacket, and pulling out her cherished lace frill. "I rather thought there would be little pens, you know, like the ones in Dickens, with a young man leaning across a counter. But it was exactly like a shop and there was a very nice little back room, and such a polite man, a Christian. He said the diamonds were very good, but small, and he didn't seem to believe me when I told him it was for a friend. Wasn't it odd of him?"
Mrs. Walbridge nodded. She had taken up a pencil and was making some notes on an old envelope, "twenty-six, thirty-six," she murmured. "Are they really signing the Armistice to-day?" she asked a moment later, looking up.
"Yes, I think so. The streets are crowded, everybody seems to be waiting for something. I don't see why they don't sign the peace at once, and not waste time over an armistice; it would be far simpler."
Mrs. Walbridge rose. "Let's go downstairs, dear," she said.
But at that moment a sudden ringing of bells filled the air—bells from all sides, bells big, bells small, bells musical and bells harsh. The two women stared at each other.