Miss Cattledon glanced round from the whist-table, as though the ears were there and wide open. She was a wiry lady of middle age, quite forty, with a screwed-in waist and creaking stays, a piece of crimson velvet round her long thin neck, her scanty hair light as ginger.
“It is she that has charge of the jewel-box,” spoke Helen, when we thought it safe to begin again. “Miss Deveen is a wonderful old lady for sixty; she has come here without a maid this time, and dresses herself. I don’t see what use Miss Cattledon is to her, unless it is to act as general refrigerator, but she gets a hundred a year salary and some of the old satins. Sophie, I’m sure she heard what we said—that we should like to steal the trinkets.”
“Hope she relished it!” quoth Harry. “She’ll put them under double lock and key, for fear we should break in.”
It was all jesting. Amid the subdued laughing, Tod bent his face over Sophie Chalk, his hand touching the lace on her sleeve. She had on blue to-night with a pearl necklace.
“Will you sing that song for me, Miss Chalk?”
She rose and took his arm. Helen jumped up and arrested them ere they reached the piano.
“We must not have any music just now. Papa never likes it when they are at whist.”
“How very unreasonable of him!” cried Tod, looking fiercely at Sir John’s old red nose and steel spectacles.
“Of course it is,” agreed Helen. “If he played for guinea stakes instead of sixpenny, he could not be more particular about having no noise. Let us go into the study: we can do as we like there.”