As soon as her chamber-door was shut, she said, in accents of alarm: 'Mine has disappeared. Carstairs, I know, is to be trusted. She remembers carrying the box out of my room; she believes she can remember putting it into the fly. She had to confess that it had vanished, without her knowing how, when my boxes were unpacked.'
'Is she very much upset?' said the earl.
'Carstairs? Why, yes, poor creature! you can imagine. I have no doubt she feels for me; and her own reputation is concerned. What do you think is best to be done?'
'To be done! Overhaul the baggage again in all the rooms.'
'We've not failed to do that.'
'Control yourself, my dear. If, by bad luck, they're lost, we can replace them. The contents of this box, now, we could not replace. Open it, and judge.'
'I have no curiosity—forgive me, I beg. And the servant's fly has been visited, ransacked inside and out, footmen questioned; we have not left anything we can conceive of undone. My lord, will you suggest?'
'The intrinsic value of the gems would not be worth—not worth Aminta's one beat of the heart. Upon my word—not one!'
An amatory knightly compliment breasting her perturbation roused an unwonted spite; and a swift reflection on it startled her with a suspicion. She cast it behind her. He could be angler and fish, he would not be cat and mouse.
She said, however, more temperately: 'It is not the value of the gems.
We are losing precious minutes!'