False Lover of Twin Sister.
Aged Parent.”
Thus you will see how my little drama was interesting me. On her daily visits to my room, I watched my poor heroine with sympathetic heart. What was going to happen? Probably Aged Parent would stab False Lover, and Villainous Valet, who happened to witness the deed, would demand as the price of his silence the honour of Chaste Chambermaid. How I began to hate the man as he roused me at eight o’clock with my steaming Mocha! How I began to pity the girl as dreary and distraught she changed my towels! Surely the dénouement was close at hand.
Poppa and I shared a parlour from which opened out respective bedrooms. It had outlook on the bay, and often the girls would sit there with their father instead of in their own salon. I was not surprised, then, on my return from a copy-hunting expedition to hear the sound of many voices coming from within.
But I was decidedly surprised, on opening the door, to find quite a dramatic scene being enacted. The backs of the actors were to me, and they did not see me enter. In the centre of the stage, as it were, were Victor and Lucrezia. Behind them the fat little manager of the hotel. To the right poppa and Guinivere. To the left Edythe and Gladys, the elder sisters.
Lucrezia looked pale as death, and cowered as if some one had struck her. Facing her, with flashing eyes and accusive digit was the vengeful Victor. The little manager was trying to control the situation, while poppa and offspring, staring blankly, were endeavouring to follow the Italian of it.
“Baggage! Thief!” Victor was crying. “I saw her. I stole after her! I watched her enter the signor’s room. There on the dressing-table it was, the little purse he had so carelessly left. She draws near, she examines it ... quick! She pushes it into her blouse—so. Oh, I saw it all through the chink of the door.”
“No, no,” the girl protested, in accents of terror and distress; “I took nothing, I swear by the Virgin, nothing. He lies. He would make for me trouble. I am innocent, innocent.”
“I am no liar,” snarled the man. “If you do not believe me, see—she has it now. Search her. Look in the bosom of her dress. Ah! I will....”
He caught her roughly. There was a scuffle in which she screamed, and from her corsage he tore forth a small flat object.