Mr. Shelton told me more. And I enjoyed it so much. But--I could not understand it, and it made me feel creepy. I think it is pleasanter not to believe in ghosts.
After this, since it was getting late, I went downstairs and stood before the portrait. And here I again asked for my bracelet. It seemed to me the portrait smiled--unpleasantly, but I suppose that was only my imagination. For when you are nervous, you cannot tell what you see, or what you don’t. And the real becomes hazy and the unreal real. I was glad to go to Mr. Kempwood’s. But I will tell about that later.
That night the bracelet came back.
Amy slept with me, and we were ready to sleep, having worked very hard to make flour paste of the right consistency. It had to be sloppy, and so that it wouldn’t harden when cold. We also had to arrange an inner holder for it, since the basket was not built to hold juice. We didn’t get started undressing until ten, and Jane, who is supposed to remind us of bedtime, became very disagreeable. But we ignored her and didn’t let her irritate us. We fixed a heavy paper inside to the basket and then poured the stuff in, and then Amy pulled it halfway out on the line, so that Evelyn would think he’d started something. We put ice in it, and it began to feel far from pleasant. We both tried it. “Sort of like cold frogs--mashed,” said Amy, which was an admirable description.
Then after this we went to bed. We decided we needn’t stay awake, for we felt sure that Evelyn would yell. And she did, but that comes later.
I didn’t go to sleep early. I have not since the bracelet was first returned. And the consciousness that it might come back again, in the same way, made me lie awake and feel gaspy. So--when I heard a little noise I was not surprised. . . . Our door was open a little way, and there was a noise at this. . . . Then a scratching noise by my bedside (the bed head is by the door). . . . In the tiniest light something glittered and made a bright point SLOWLY MOVING ACROSS THE FLOOR. . . . I struggled up, and somehow found my searchlight. . . . Swallowing hard and feeling sick, I pressed it. The Jumel bracelet lay one yard inside the door on the floor. . . . It was the glitter on the gold that had let me see it, as it moved.
It had come back again.
Chapter X--What Mr. Kempwood Told Me
Mr. Kempwood’s “rooms,” as he called them, were lovely. And I had a fine time going around and looking at things. His furniture is more than pretty; it has a reason. Everything is either very comfortable, or very interesting. And it all makes you want to linger.
For instance, he opened a cabinette which honestly held interesting things, not like Aunt Penelope’s, which has only six fancy fans and a lot of ancient scent-bottles and an autographed book of poems and such truck. His has really fascinating things in it, and it is, therefore, worth the dusting trouble. There were all sorts of books in it, written in different ways. I mean scrolls--simply yards of those, and an East Indian one written on reeds all strung together, and even one on a brick. We agreed that it would be frightful to have to scratch out a best seller with a chisel. He said, “Think how your wrist would feel by the time your hero gets his best girl!” and I agreed. That brick was Assyrian. Then he had little tiny gods that the Egyptians buried with people. And he even had the toilet things of an ancient queen, and it had a tweezers in it, which led me to believe that even then they pulled out the extra eyebrows and made them skinny and beautiful, as women do to-day.