With a muttered exclamation of annoyance Philip drew back. He glanced into the cloak-room as he passed—it was quite deserted, no one else seemed to be taking their departure just then. He strolled forward again towards the door, and pushing it open, stepped out on to the drive. Yes, it was a very cold night, much too cold for keeping horses waiting, in consequence of which, no doubt, no horses or carriages were to be seen.
“She must have gone,” thought the young man. “But who in the world is she, and whom can she have come with? Louis Belvoir knows no more than I do, and I don’t want to make myself conspicuous by asking any one else.”
He turned back, but just as he was stepping inside the porch, something glistening on the ground caught his eye.
“By Jove!” Philip ejaculated, “can it be one of my lady’s diamond pins? What a joke it would be—for she always maintains that she never loses anything.”
He stooped as he spoke to pick it up, but the object that met his hand was not at all what he had expected. The sparkle which had attracted him was that of diamonds of a kind, certainly, but the jewel was attached to something else, much more ponderous, though small and dainty enough for what it was—a shoe!
It had lain in the shadow, all of it except the front, on which the old paste buckle had glittered in the moonlight—it had once been a slipper of gleaming white satin, but time had slightly dimmed its brightness. Sir Philip took it into the light of the lamp—there was no servant about just then—and examined it curiously. Gradually a smile broke over his features.
“Ah,” he thought, “my allusion to Cinderella this evening seems to have been prophetic. I shall pocket this treasure. It is Miss Wyndham’s, I know, I remember noticing the buckles when she was dancing, and the rather old-world look of the slippers. Upon my word, it is like a fairy-tale. The shoes must have been too big for her.”
He was quiet and rather absent when he returned to his cousin Ermine, but had evidently got over his annoyance.
“You were in time then to say good-night to your friends, I hope?” asked Ermine with some curiosity.
“No—at least, not exactly,” he replied. “But it doesn’t matter.”