As for Alison, her humour was dangerously impregnated with the consciousness that she had played the fool to such an extent that she stood in a fair way to lose her necklace. Inasmuch as she knew this to be altogether her fault, whatever the outcome, she was in a mood to quarrel with the whole wide world; and she schooled herself to treat with Staff on terms of toleration only by exercise of considerable self-command and because she was exacting a service of him.
So their ride uptown was marked by its atmosphere of distant and dispassionate civility. They spoke infrequently, and then on indifferent topics soon suffered to languish. In due course, however, Staff mastered his resentment and—as evidenced by his wry, secret smile—began to take a philosophic view of the situation, to extract some slight amusement from his insight into Alison’s mental processes. Intuitively sensing this, she grew even more exasperated with him—as well as with everybody aside from her own impeccable self.
At the St. Simon, Staff soberly escorted the woman to the lounge, meaning to leave her there while he enquired for Eleanor at the office; but they had barely set foot in the apartment when their names were shrieked at them in an excitable, shrill, feminine voice, and Mrs. Ilkington bore down upon them in full regalia of sensation.
“My dears!” she cried, regarding them affectionately—“such a surprise! Such a delightful surprise! And so good of you to come to see me so soon! And opportune—I’m dying, positively expiring, for somebody to gossip with. Such a singular thing has happened—”
Alison interrupted bluntly: “Where’s Miss Searle? Mr. Staff is anxious to see her.”
“That’s just it—just what I want to talk about. You’d never guess what that girl has done—and after all the trouble and thought I’ve taken in her behalf, too! I’m disgusted, positively and finally disgusted; never again will I interest myself in such people. I—”
“But where is Miss Searle?” demanded Alison, with a significant look to Staff.
“Gone!” announced Mrs. Ilkington impressively.
“Gone?” echoed Staff.
Mrs. Ilkington nodded vigorously, compressing her lips to a thin line of disapproval. “I’m positively at my wits’ end to account for her.”