“These buttons are marked with my name on the back.”
“That may be; you have had plenty of time, doubtless, to get them marked,” sneered Isabel.
“I shall compel you to return that casket to me,” retorted Brownie, with flashing eyes.
“Ha, ha! Perhaps you will, and then again perhaps you won’t. But we have discussed that subject sufficiently in the past. When did you see Mr. Dredmond?” Isabel asked, insolently, and noting how exquisitely lovely Brownie had grown since she saw her last.
“Really, Miss Coolidge, if I remain here longer I shall lose my walk, and that I cannot afford to do.”
With which tantalizing remark, Brownie, her figure proudly erect, moved down the corridor, leaving her interlocutor beautifully in the dark as to how or when she had seen Mr. Dredmond.
“I suppose you thought by coming down here you’d have a better chance to practice your wiles upon that young gentleman; but, mark my words, you won’t succeed, for I shall feel it my duty to inform Lady Randal of the very suspicious character which she is harboring,” hissed the irate girl after her.
She might just as well have talked to the winds, for Miss Douglas never gave a sign that she heard.
As Brownie passed Isabel’s room again, a few hours later, she saw that the door was open.
Her maid had gone out a few moments before, had carelessly left it standing open, and was now in the servants’ hall flirting with the butler’s assistant.