“How could we get in?” asked Millie.
“Oh! get in some way easy enough.”
“It’s stealing,” said Millie, and thought of her raid on the Kilburn tobacconist’s.
“You can’t steal from dead people,” explained Blanche; “besides, who’ll have the things if we don’t?”
“I suppose it’d be all right,” hesitated Millie, obviously tempted.
“Well, of course,” returned Blanche and paused. “I say, Mill,” she burst out suddenly. “There’s all the West-end to choose from. Come on!”
For a time they walked more quickly.
In Kensington High Street they had an adventure. They saw a woman decked in gorgeous silks, strung and studded with jewels from head to foot. She walked with a slow and flaunting step, gesticulating, and talking. Every now and again she would pause and draw herself up with an affectation of immense dignity, finger the ropes of jewels at her breast, and make a slow gesture with her hands.
“She’s mad,” whispered Blanche, and the two girls, terrified and trembling, hastily took refuge in a great square cave full of litter and refuse that had once been a grocer’s shop.
The woman passed their hiding-place in her stately progress westward without giving any sign that she was conscious of their presence. When she was nearly opposite to them she made one of her stately pauses. “Queen of all the Earth,” they heard her say, “Queen and Empress. Queen of the Earth.” Her hand went up to her head and touched a strange collection of jewels pinned in her hair, of tiaras and brooches that flashed brighter than the high lights of the brilliant sun. One carelessly fastened brooch fell and she pushed it aside with her foot. “You understand,” she said in her high, wavering voice, “you understand, Queen and Empress, Queen of the Earth.”