"Yes," said I. "But see here, Henrietta, suppose Mr. Carnegie should go down to Raffleshurst to see the new building and find out what a bunco game we have played on him?"
"He's not likely to do that for two reasons, Bunny," she replied. "In the first place he suffers acutely from lumbago in winter and can't travel, and in the second place he'd have to find Raffleshurst-by-the-Sea before he could make the discovery that somebody'd put up a game on him. I think by the time he is ready to start we can arrange matters to have Raffleshurst taken off the map."
"Well, I think this is the cleverest trick you've turned yet, Henriette," said I.
"Nonsense, Bunny, nonsense," she replied. "Any idiot can get a Carnegie library these days. That's why I put you on the job, dear," she added, affectionately.
IX
THE ADVENTURE OF THE HOLD-UP
Now that it is all over, I do not know whether she was really worn-out or by the expert use of powder gave to her cheeks the pallid look which bore out Mrs. Van Raffles's statement to me that she needed a rest. At any rate, one morning in mid-August, when the Newport season was in full feather, Henriette, looking very pale and wan, tearfully confessed to me that business had got on her nerves and that she was going away to a rest-cure on the Hudson for ten days.
"I just can't stand it for another minute, Bunny," she faltered, real tears coursing down her cheeks. "I haven't slept a wink of natural sleep for five days, and yet when night comes it is all I can do to keep my eyes open. At the Rockerbilt ball last night I dozed off four times while talking with the Duchess of Snarleyow, and when the Chinese Ambassador asked me to sit out the gavotte with him I'm told I actually snored in his face. A woman who can't keep awake all night and sleep properly by day is not fit for Newport society, and I've simply got to go away and get my nerve back again."
"You are very wise," I replied, "and I wholly approve of your course. There is no use of trying to do too much and you have begun to show the strain to which you have been subjecting yourself. Your failure last Friday night to land Mrs. Gollet's ruby dog-collar when her French poodle sat in your lap all through the Gaster musicale is evidence to me that your mind is not as alert as usual. By all means, go away and rest up. I'll take care of things around here."