As soon as Amarilly had been deposited at her door, Colette tore a leaf
from the tablet reposing in its silver case, hastily wrote a few lines,
and then ran her brougham at full speed back to St. Mark's. A chorister
was just coming out.
"Walter!" she called.
The lad came down to the curb.
"Will you please take this to Mr. Meredith? He is probably in the
Sunday-school now."
"Sure. Will you wait for an answer, Miss King?".
"No, thank you, Walter."
She rode home and waited anxiously for the personal answer to her note,
which came with most unclerical alacrity.
"Colette," he said, his voice tense, "if you knew what your little note
meant! Did--"
"Wait until I explain, John. I must tell you about the surplice."
She repeated Amarilly's account of the peregrinations of the robe.
"Well?" he asked bewildered, "I don't see what that has to do with--"
"Everything. There was something of mine--" she turned a deep
crimson--"in the pocket of that surplice."
"Yours! Why, how did it get there, Colette? Was it--"
"I am not going to tell you--not until I have it back. Oh, I could die
of shame when I think who may have found it. You must get it."
"Colette," he answered gravely, "the surplice must have passed through
many hands, but if it is possible to trace this--article, I will do so.
Still, how can I make inquiries unless I know what it is?"
"You can ask them, each and all, if they found anything in the pocket,"
she replied. "And you must tell them you left it there."
"And you won't trust me, Colette? Not after my long unhappy summer. And
won't you give me an answer now to the note I wrote you last spring?"
"No; I won't tell you anything! Not until you find that."
"Be reasonable, Colette."
His choice of an adjective was most unfortunate for his cause. It was
the word of words that Colette detested; doubtless because she had been
so often entreated to cultivate that quality.
"I will not," she answered, "if to tell you is being reasonable. I must
have it back. I think no one will really know to whom it belongs, though
they may guess. You must, assume the ownership."
"I certainly shall, if it can be found," he assured her.
Seeing the utter futility of changing her mood, he took his departure;
perhaps a little wiser if not quite so sad as he had been before he saw
her. The next morning he called upon Amarilly, whom he found alone with
Iry.