And then the conspiracy stopped for the moment.
The following Tuesday at five the second of Mrs. Van Raffles's Tuesday afternoons began. Fortune favored us in that it was a beautiful day and the number of guests was large. Henriette was charming in her new gown specially imported from Paris—a gown of Oriental design with row upon row of brilliantly shining, crescent-shaped ornaments firmly affixed to the front of it and every one of them as sharp as a steel knife. I could see at a glance that even if so little as one of these fastened its talons upon the pearl rope of Mrs. Gushington-Andrews nothing under heaven could save it from laceration.
What a marvellous mind there lay behind those exquisite, childlike eyes of the wonderful Henriette!
"Remember, Bunny—calm deliberation—your gloves now," were her last words to me.
"Count on me, Henriette; but I still don't see—" I began.
"Hush! Just watch me," she replied.
Whereupon this wonderful creature, taking my white gloves, deliberately smeared their palms and inner sides of the fingers with a milk-hued paste of her own making, composed of talcum powder and liquid honey. Nothing more innocent-appearing yet more villainously sticky have I ever before encountered.
"There!" she said—and at last I understood.
An hour later our victim arrived and scarce an inch of her but shone like a snow-clad hill with the pearls she wore. I stood at the portière and announced Mrs. Gushington-Andrews in my most blasé but butlerian tones. The lady fairly rushed by me, and in a moment her arms were about Henriette's neck.
"You dear, sweet thing!" cried Mrs. Gushington-Andrews. "And you look so exquisitely charming to-day—"