Anyone watching the two would have seen that they were in very different moods. Lily looked radiant. She was certainly the prettiest, as well as the best-dressed, girl in the rooms at that particular moment. As for her companion, a look of doubt, of discomfort, of suspense was on his face. But she was quite unaware of it. She prattled gaily on, excited and interested by all she saw. Even when two stout women pushed so roughly past her as almost to make her lose her balance she only laughed.
At last, as they saw M. Popeau detach himself from the table and begin his ambling walk towards them, a satisfied air on his fat, placid face, Angus Stuart suddenly whispered, “I suppose you got my letter all right, Miss Fairfield?”
“Your letter? No! I’ve had no letter from you since the last one you wrote to me from Milan.”
“I wrote to you the day before yesterday evening!” he exclaimed under his breath. And then, straightening himself, remarked with an air of rather elaborate unconcern, “Well, Popeau, how goes it? Have you broken the bank?”
“I have not broken the bank, but I have made two hundred francs!” replied the Frenchman gaily. “And that, after all, is not bad! At one moment I had made a good deal more, but alas! twice number fifteen turned up and swept away a hundred francs of my winnings. I was very foolish not to leave off—as Mademoiselle so wisely did.”
And then something very untoward happened. Lily suddenly discovered that her charming little bag and its contents had disappeared. The silk cords by which it had hung loosely on her right arm were still there, dangling helplessly.
She looked about her, bewildered and chagrined.
“It must have been taken by one of the women who pushed past you just now,” exclaimed Captain Stuart.
“I’ll try and not think any more about it. After all, I’ve only really lost forty francs,” said Lily vexedly.