The cold gray dawn of the morning after found Petite Jeanne considerably shaken in her mind regarding the outcome of this, her latest adventure.
“Will they truly arrest me?” she asked herself as, slipping into a heavy robe, she sought the comfort of an early fire. “And if they arrest me, what then?” She shuddered. She had once visited a police court in this very city. An uninviting place it had been, too. With judge and lawyers alternately laughing and storming at crestfallen individuals who stood, some quite bewildered, others with an air of hopelessness about them, with two women weeping in a corner, and with an ill-smelling, ogling group of visitors looking on, the whole place had depressed her beyond words.
“Am I to stand there to be stared at? Will the lawyers and the judge make a joke of my misfortune?” She stamped her little foot angrily. “No! No! Nevair! They shall not!
“And yet,” she thought more soberly, “I must go back. I truly must!
“Oh, why did I run away? Why did I not say: ‘Search me if you must. You will see that I do not have your necklace!’
“But no!” She flushed. “As Petite Jeanne I might be searched. But as Pierre. Ah, no! No!”
A cup of steaming coffee revived her spirits; but for a few hours only. Then the dull, drab day bore down upon her with greater force than ever.
And indeed it was no sort of day to enliven spirits and bolster up courage. Gray skies, gray streets, gray fog, dripping walls of great buildings, these were all about her. And in the end a slow, weepy, drizzling rain began to fall.
There is but one way to endure such a day. That is to don storm rubbers, raincoat and an old hat, and defy it. Defy it Petite Jeanne did. And once in the cool damp of it all, she found relief.
She wandered on and on. The fog grew thicker. Clouds hung dark and low. Lights began to appear. Yet it was not night.