“Aren't you well. Miss Carew?” she asked.
The men, in their turn, stared. The stout one rose fussily. “Let me get a glass of water,” he said. The stupid small man stood up and waved his hands with nervousness.
“Aren't you well?” asked the amiable young lady again.
Then Jane Carew recovered her poise. It was seldom that she lost it. “I am quite well, thank you, Miss Murdock,” she replied. “I believe diamonds are trumps.”
They all settled again to the play, but the young lady and the two men continued glancing at Miss Carew. She had recovered her dignity of manner, but not her color. Moreover, she had a bewildered expression. Resolutely she abstained from glancing again at her amethyst comb in Viola Longstreet's ash-blond hair, and gradually, by a course of subconscious reasoning as she carefully played her cards, she arrived at a conclusion which caused her color to return and the bewildered expression to disappear. When refreshments were served, the amiable young lady said, kindly:
“You look quite yourself, now, dear Miss Carew, but at one time while we were playing I was really alarmed. You were very pale.”
“I did not feel in the least ill,” replied Jane Carew. She smiled her Carew smile at the young lady. Jane had settled it with herself that of course Viola had borrowed that amethyst comb, appealing to Margaret. Viola ought not to have done that; she should have asked her, Miss Carew; and Jane wondered, because Viola was very well bred; but of course that was what had happened. Jane had come down before Viola, leaving Margaret in her room, and Viola had asked her. Jane did not then remember that Viola had not even been told that there was an amethyst comb in existence. She remembered when Margaret, whose face was as pale and bewildered as her own, mentioned it, when she was brushing her hair.
“I saw it, first thing. Miss Jane,” said Margaret. “Louisa and I were on the landing, and I looked down and saw your amethyst comb in Mrs. Longstreet's hair.”
“She had asked you for it, because I had gone down-stairs?” asked Jane, feebly.
“No, Miss Jane. I had not seen her. I went out right after you did. Louisa had finished Mrs. Longstreet, and she and I went down to the mailbox to post a letter, and then we sat on the landing, and—I saw your comb.”