Pikey recoiled with her horrified gaze still on the hat and coat of her mistress. And then, being by no means a fool, in one blinding, hideous flash of insight she saw it all....
The little wretch had surpassed herself! Poor Pikey grew faint and rather chill. Her charge had played more than one mad prank in her life of twenty years, but in its daring and its wickedness this exploit was surely incredible. All the same there was the hard, cold fact and it had to be faced.
“Why did you let her!” The voice and the look of the Dragon threatened actual bodily violence to Miss Cass.
“I—I didn’t seem able to prevent her.”
Reading the gentle, rather scared eyes, the truculent Pikey felt these feeble words to be literally true. At the beck of a rather grim sense of humor the old retainer bared her yellow teeth. It was almost in her heart to admire the Little Beast; yet at the same moment she was consumed with a passion to shake the life out of poor Miss No-Class.
“Where has she gone—tell me that!” So fierce was the Werewolf that a look akin to terror entered Girlie’s eyes. The Lady of Laxton, however, did her best to give a coherent account of all that had happened.
“You say she has gone to The Laurels,” said Pikey, blankly. “And she has taken your luggage with her.” Darkness and eclipse stared the luckless duenna in the face. “I don’t know where The Laurels is. And, anyway, I doubt if there would be time to fetch her before dinner.”
Miss Cass not only doubted if there would be time to fetch her before dinner; privately she doubted also if in her present mood the wicked Elfreda would come if she were fetched.
“Well, I don’t know what to do,” groaned Pikey, “and that’s the truth.” The Deputy looked blankly at the duenna. Her white face grew piteous.
“Whatever do you suppose is going to happen!” The cold ferocity again struck terror into the heart of Girlie Cass.