It was getting disgraceful. I tried to save a shred of dignity. I laid the locket on the dresser and faced Ethel steadily. I still had a vivid memory of Clarice’s distressed face as she went out that day.
“You have done Clarice a wrong,” I said firmly, “and it must be righted. I’ll give you your choice. Either you take the locket back to your mother or I’ll tell her where it is.”
Ethel changed her tactics and tried to bribe me. “I’ll give you a dozen pairs of silk stockings if you don’t say anything to mamma about it and let her go on thinking it’s stolen, so I can wear it whenever I please,” she offered.
I longed to choke her. “Don’t you try to bribe me, Ethel Harper,” I said severely. “I’ve got a code of honor, even if I am a poor stenographer, which is more than you have, with all your millions.”
“Some more of your Campfire stuff,” she said sneeringly.
“You bet it is ‘Campfire stuff,’” I replied hotly. “You see that little pin? One of things it says is ‘Be trustworthy.’ If I let Clarice be unjustly accused I wouldn’t be worthy of that pin. Remember! Either you tell your mother or I do.” And I started for the door.
Ethel changed her tune again and began to cry. “Everybody is so horrid to me,” she sobbed. “Mamma will never let me go anywhere I want to go or wear what I want to wear, and the servants won’t do what I tell them. Even my mother’s stenographer bosses me around! I wish I was dead!”
But I was firm in my championship of Clarice. “You’ll have to tell,” I repeated. “I see your mother coming in now.”
Ethel began to look frightened. “I’ll not tell her I took it, she’d kill me,” she whined. “I’ll tell her I just found it and she can take back what she said to Clarice.”
I looked her steadily in the eyes. She flushed and looked down.