"Gussie's not at the office," Mrs Mellish said. "He's on the track of your burglar, Auntie, you bet. He'll catch him, too! You'll be wanted to identify him; could you swear to him, do you think?"
Auntie very hurriedly declared her inability to do this. "All the upper part of his face was covered," she said.
But she thought of a black-shaved chin below the mask, and a jaw that had worked silently, in a way of late familiar to her; and she found herself quite unable to do justice to her niece's eggs and bacon.
At the door of the first-class railway compartment by which Auntie was to travel Grace stood.
"Gussie will be furious when he comes back and finds you gone," she said. "He'll catch the man, to the deadest certainty. He's got the brains of the whole police force in his own head. You should have stayed to enjoy the excitement."
Auntie, whitened and flabby-looking under her smart violet toque, reiterated the statement that she could not have stayed another night.
"It's been a great shock. I feel as if I might never recover from it; and I wish with all my heart I had never come," she said.
"Well, since you wish it, I wish it, too," Grace retorted, kindling. "We must console ourselves that it has not been for long, and try to forget all about it."
"I shall be glad to be back in my own home," Auntie said.