"And he was once very kind to me. But he would be the first to tell me to do my duty now. I'll do it as quietly as I can for his sake. But you must come with me or I must arrest—"
She put up a shaking hand. Dear little old guy!
"Don't—don't say it! It's all a mistake, which can be rectified in a moment. I've been trying to match this piece of lace for years. I got it at Malta when—when Mills and I—on our honeymoon. When I saw it there on the counter I was so delighted—I never thought—I intended taking it to the light to be sure the pattern was the same, my eyesight is so wretched—and when you spoke to me it was the first inkling I had that I had really taken it without paying! You certainly understand," she pleaded in agitation. "I have no need to steal—you must know that—oh, that I wouldn't—that—I couldn't—If you will just let me pay you—"
Here now, Mag Monahan, don't you get to sneering. She was straight—right on the level, all right. You couldn't listen to that cracked little voice of hers a minute without being sure of it.
I was just about to permit her graciously to pay me the money,—for my friend? the dear Bishop's sake, of course,—when a big floor-walker happened to catch sight of us.
"If you'll come with me, Mrs. Van Wagenen, to a dressing-room, I'll arrange your collar for you," I said very loud. And then, in a whisper: "Of course, I understand, but the thing may look different to other people. And that big floor-walker there gets a commission from the newspapers every time he tells them—"
She gave a squawk for all the world like a dried-up little hen scuttling out of a yellow dog's way, and we took the elevator to the second floor.
The minute I closed the door of the little fitting-room she held out the lace to me.
"I have changed my mind," she said, "and shall give you the lace back. I will not keep it. I can not—I can not bear the sight of it. It terrifies me and shocks me. I can take no pleasure in it. Besides—besides, it will be discipline for me to do without it now that I have found it after all these years. Every day I shall look at the place in my collection which it would have occupied, and I shall say to myself: 'Maria Van Wagenen, take warning. See to what terrible straits a worldly passion may bring one; what unconscious greed may do!' I shall give the money to Mills for charity and I will never—never fill that place in my collection."
"What good will that do?" I asked, puzzled, while I folded the collar up into a very small package.