Miss Tennant stood in the door-way of her room. She was pale and greatly agitated, but her eyes shone with courage and resolve. Her arched, blue-veined feet were thrust into a pair of red Turkish slippers turning up at the toes. A mandarin robe of dragoned blue brocade was flung over her night-gown. In one hand she had a golf club—a niblick.
"Oh!" she cried, when her father was sufficiently recovered from overturning the cabinet to listen, "there was a man in my room."
| Mr. Tennant | } | { furiously. | |
| Young Mr. Tennant | } | { sleepily. | |
| The butler | } | "A man?" | { as if he thought she meant to say a fire. |
| The French maid | } | { blushing crimson. |
Then, and again all together:
| Mr. Tennant— | "Which way did he go?" |
| Young Mr. Tennant— | "Which man?" |
| The butler— | "A white man?" |
| The French maid (with a kind of ecstasy)— | "A man!" |
"Out the window!" cried Miss Tennant.
Her father and brother dashed downstairs and out into the grounds. The butler hurried to the telephone (still carrying his bucket of water) and rang Central and asked for the chief of police. Central answered, after a long interval, that the chief of police was out of order, and rang off.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Tennant arrived, and, having coldly recovered her jewel-case from the custody of the French maid, prepared to be told the details of what hadn't happened.
"He was bending over my dressing-table, mamma," said Miss Tennant. "I could see him plainly in the moonlight; he had a mask, and was smooth shaven, and he wore gloves."