“While we dress for dinner,” she observed, “we’ll have a talk about that jewelry. What on earth are we going to do with it?”
“Don’t you think we’d better tell Miss Campbell?” suggested Elinor.
“I suppose it would be best, but Cousin Helen does go off so about things, and I have a feeling that if she knew it she wouldn’t allow us to keep our promise to our poor beautiful lady. She would be sure to turn the box over to the police or call in a lawyer or something. And if we could only keep the box until we heard from the man in Paris, at least, we should be keeping our word about it.”
Elinor and Mary were all for telling, but the other girls were still under the spell of the very beautiful and distressed woman, and since it was mostly their affair they concluded not to tell.
You must not blame Billie for this want of frankness. Girls who have never had mothers to talk to in the intimate way that only a mother and daughter know, are apt to be reserved and self-reliant. Billie would certainly have told her father, but, then, he was in Russia.
Mary and Elinor, whose room adjoined the other, had put on their kimonos and were lolling on the beds, while Nancy with solicitous care was removing her pretty muslin frock from the valise and smoothing out the pink taffeta ribbons tenderly.
Billie knelt on the floor and opened her suit case.
“Before I undress,” she said decisively, “I’m going to take this box straight down stairs and give it to the clerk to put in the safe. Then we can spend the evening with easy minds.”
She flung back the top and sat down on the floor with a gasp.
“In the name of all the powers, this is not my suit case.”