“Well, I’ll go round and see the folks close to here that sell ladders, but I guess it won’t be any use. There’s too many places where you can get ladders in a big city like this. He might ’a’ stole it too. Mighty queer!” He shook his head as he walked away.
That same day Florence wrapped the blue candlestick carefully in tissue paper, snapped three rubber bands about it, then made her way with it to the surface line where she took a car for down town. She kept a close watch to the right, to the left and back of her for any signs of being followed. She scrutinized the faces of those who entered the car with her and even cast a glance behind the car to see if there chanced to be a taxi following.
Truth was, the events of the last hours had played havoc with her nerves. The candlestick in her possession was like the presence of some supernatural thing. It haunted her even in the day, as a thought of ghosts in a lonely spot at night might have tormented her.
It was with a distinct sense of relief that, after leaving the car and passing over a half mile of board-walk, she entered the massive door of the new museum.
For a moment, after entering, she permitted her eyes to roam up and down its vast, high-vaulted corridors, to catch the echo of voices which came murmuring to her from everywhere.
She saw the massive pillars, the polished floors, the miles of glass cases, then a distinct sense of sorrow swept over her, a feeling of pity for the ragged giant of a building out by the lake front which had once housed all these treasures of beauty, antiquity and wealth.
“Temporary! Temporary” kept running through her mind. “Too hastily built and of poor material. Now it is abandoned to decay. Life is like that. That’s why one should struggle to lay foundations, to prepare one’s self for life. For eighteen years, without education, one may be good enough. Then, like the old museum, one is cast aside, abandoned to decay.”
As these thoughts swept through her mind she resolved more strongly than before, that, come what might, she would continue her battle for a university education.
Suddenly recalling her mission, she asked the attendant to tell her where she might find Mr. Cole.
“Mr. Cole’s office,” said the man courteously, “is in the left wing, third floor. See those stairs at the other end of this hall?”