“Did Jack have it?” Gloria asked, deeply perplexed.
“Jack? Why no. It was Jack’s loss. She had no reason to hide the clue, but every reason under the sun and earth to hunt for it.” The tailor-made suit seemed to strain at the seams. Mrs. Corday sat down, exhausted.
“Where can we go for a few minutes? I must tell you a part of the story privately.”
“Come over to the Rookery Tea Room,” suggested Gloria, with a drowning girl’s clutch at rescue. “There will be no one there at this hour and we can talk comfortably.”
As they allowed the station door to shut with a bang, and Gloria beckoned to the patient hack driver, she remembered the distant essay as one remembers the last thought before sleep.
Jane stepped in the car first. Gloria followed, and Mrs. Corday, still holding the suspected necklace in a firm hand, gave Dave her orders.
Compared with lost treasures and erratic women, what, after all, was a mere prize essay? But Gloria could not crush back her fluttering hopes.
Her dad represented her world, his happiness her one desire, and to do something worth while in her first term was her determination. All this was involved in the prize essay, for in other studies than English, she had found herself unequal to most of her companions. But she loved this subject and it was almost finished, that essay. Still!
Jack lay helpless. She could not do for herself what was asked of Gloria. And she was so keenly sensitive among the over critical girls.
Mrs. Corday was even now betraying signs of some of the peculiarities attributed to her. She was strangely excited over that little string of beads. Perhaps this was the hallucination Jack had spoken of so guardedly?