“So I should think; in this weather. What a crazy old slogger you are! Your first letter was forwarded to me ages ago; so, knowing Aureole was all right with you, I stopped on in New York, and did some business.”
“Um.”
“What?”
“Nothing. Second door on the left.”
Oliver ran up the stairs, two at a time, and vanished.
“Nice old mess-up it might have been, but for me,” reflected Stuart complacently. “And I wonder if that’s going to be something on my credit side of the ledger, at last. Who pulled ’em out?—little Tommy Stout!”
—But who put ’em in?... Stuart remembered suddenly his debit account; and ceased to crow.
A sad little Pierrette crouched in front of the fire. Pierrot had gone away. Would he ever come back? Pierrette had waited so long.
The wind lashed and sobbed at the windows. Up the street crept the solitary figure of a man. Outside the house he paused, cast away a phantom cloak and mask—(oh, the infinite relief!) and donned a phantom skull cap and white frill. Metamorphosis easily effected.