To all which Jean replied with her ordinary laugh of consummate self-possession, if not impudence. Nor was she at all unwilling to march—rather the contrary. She knew what she was about.
“Come away,” she said, “and we shall see who is right and who is wrong.”
And so away they went. Nor was it long before Jean was examined by one of the female searchers of the Office. No five-pound note was found upon her; and though the young man raved incessantly about the absolute certainty of the theft, the policeman, and not less the lieutenant on duty, was satisfied that there must have been a mistake,—a conclusion which the redoubted Jean confirmed by a cool declaration, in all likelihood false, that she had seen the young gentleman in the company of not less scrupulous women a very short time before. There was only one thing to be done—to set Jean free.
“And who is to pay me for all this time?” said she, as she turned to the lieutenant a face in which was displayed a mock seriousness, contrasting vividly with the wild, anxious countenance of the youth. “I could have made five pounds in the time in an honest way, so that I am the real loser; and who, I ask again, is to pay me?”
A question to which she no more expected a reply than she did the payment of her lost gains in an honest way. And with head erect, if not indeed with an air of injured innocence, she marched out of the office. Yet nothing would satisfy the young man that he had not been robbed; and he too, when he saw that he had no hope, left with the conviction that he was a greatly injured innocent.
The matter died away, leaving only the impression of some unaccountable mistake or indetectible priggery, though probably the presumption was against the woman, whose genius in this peculiar line of art was known to be able to find her advantage in a mystery through which the most practised eye of official vision could see nothing.
A day or two passed. No more was heard of the young man, who no doubt had made up his mind to the loss of the five pounds; nor did the constable, who was again upon his beat about the same hour, think any more of the mystery, unless perhaps the place brought up a passing thought of wonder how the bit of paper could have disappeared in so very short a time. A woman came running up to him. It was Jean, and she was all of a bustle. Laying hold of the man by the left hand—
“What now,” said the constable, who knew well that something not altogether useless to Jean was coming. “In one of your high jinks?”
“No; I have a secret for you, man.”
“What is it?”