"I will do so; and thank you very much. Then you can really give me no particulars about my purse?"
"I regret I cannot."
"This is strange!"
"It must appear so to you." Keith looked full at her. "Do you intend to make this story public?" he asked.
She laughed, and her laugh was almost harsh.
"It would make a good story," she said then; "and we do pine for that sort of thing in society, girl—a rich girl—loses her purse. An officer in one of Her Majesty's regiments brings her back the money, not the purse."
"You can make your story exceedingly funny," said Keith, but as he spoke he did not smile.
"I will never make it funny," she replied, and she rose and drew herself up. "I am not ungenerous, and if I fail to read between the lines, or to see what you mean me to see, or to understand whether you are acting with chivalry and the desire to screen another, or because yours is merely a tardy repentance for something you yourself have done, you cannot blame me. I shall never know which motive actuates you. I shall be satisfied to go without knowing. The money is returned to me, and the affair goes no further."
"Thank you," replied Keith. Then he added, and the words came out with a visible effort, "Put the chivalrous theory quite out of your head. I thank you most sincerely. Good-afternoon."
He left her, and never was a girl more astonished than she as she stood, her hand resting on the table, with the gold and notes close to her. She was interrupted in her meditations by the entrance of a stout, very red-faced man.