I studied it a long time, and then I went down to S. K.
“My soul!” he said, “what a long face the bracelet leads us to wear!”
“Oh, S. K.,” I answered, “I don’t want to give it to you!”
Then he said: “What nonsense! . . .” Just at that moment his man told him that someone wanted to speak with him at the telephone; he excused himself, and I had a chance to think. It did not seem to me that I could let him run that risk. I opened the case, looked down at the bracelet, and considered it. Then I heard S. K. coming back, quickly moved, snapped the case shut, tied it with the ribbon, and said: “Here.” My voice was not usual.
“So she thinks I am going to be killed, does she?” asked S. K.
“Don’t,” I begged, and then I stood up, for it was getting late, and I was still in day things, and Amy and I were to go to see a friend after dinner. I saw him put it in his wall safe, shook hands, asked him please not to bother to come up with me, and ran off.
I found Amy using my dressing-table because it has a better light than hers.
“Mother is frightfully shocked,” she said. “I think that man upset her fearfully, Natalie. I think it was the strangest thing for you to do----” Her voice trailed off and she turned to see how her hair looked at the back.
“I didn’t know at that time,” I began, but she cut me short.
“She wonders how many more people you talked to,” she went on, “and she hopes that this Mr. Stilkins, or whatever his name was, isn’t a sample of them all. How did you start it, anyway? . . . I knew that cooks did that sort of thing, but I never knew how they began it.”