At midnight the house was fairly quiet, except for Jim, who kept walking
around the halls because he couldn't sleep. I got up at last and ordered
him to bed, and he had the audacity to have a grievance with me.
"Look at my situation now!" he said, sitting pensively on a steam
radiator. "Aunt Selina is crazy. I only kissed your hand, anyhow, and I
don't know why you sat in the den all evening; you might have known that
Bella would notice it. Why couldn't you leave me alone to my misery?"
"Very well," I said, much offended. "After this I shall sit with
Flannigan in the kitchen. He is the only gentleman in the house."
I left him babbling apologies and went to bed, but I had an
uncomfortable feeling that Bella had been a witness to our conversation,
for the door into Aunt Selina's room closed softly as I passed.
I knew beforehand that I was not going to sleep. The instant I turned
out the light the nightmare events of the evening ranged themselves in
a procession, or a series of tableaus, one after the other; Flannigan on
the roof, with the bracelet on his palm, looking accusingly at me; Mr.
Harbison and the scene on the roof, with my flippancy; and the result
of that flippancy--the man on the stairs, the arms that held me, the
terrible kisses that had scorched my lips--it was awful! And then the
absurd situation across Aunt Selina's bed, and Bella's face! Oh, it
was all so ridiculous--my having thought that the Harbison man was
a gentleman, and finding him a cad, and worse. It was excruciatingly
funny. I quite got a headache from laughing; indeed I laughed until I
found I was crying, and then I knew I was going to have an attack of
strangulated emotion, called hysteria. So I got up and turned on all the
lights, and bathed my face with cologne, and felt better.
But I did not go to sleep. When the hall clock chimed two, I discovered
I was hungry. I had had nothing since luncheon, and even the thirst
following the South American goulash was gone. There was probably
something to eat in the pantry, and if there was not, I was quite equal
to going to the basement.
As it happened, however, I found a very orderly assortment of left-overs
and a pitcher of milk, which had no business there in the pantry, and
with plenty of light I was not at all frightened.
I ate bread and butter and drank milk, and was fast becoming a rational
person again; I had pulled out one of the drawers part way, and with a
tray across the corner I had improvised a comfortable seat. And then I
noticed that the drawer was full of soiled napkins, and I remembered the
bracelet. I hardly know why I decided to go through the drawer again,
after Flannigan had already done it, but I did. I finished my milk and
then, getting down on my knees, I proceeded systematically to empty the
drawer. I took out perhaps a dozen napkins and as many doilies without
finding anything. Then I took out a large tray cloth, and there was
something on it that made me look farther. One corner of it had been
scorched, the clear and well defined imprint of a lighted cigarette or
cigar, a blackened streak that trailed off into a brown and yellow.
I had a queer, trembly feeling, as if I were on the brink of a
discovery--perhaps Anne's pearls, or the cuff buttons with storks
painted on china in the center. But the only thing I found, down in the
corner of the drawer, was a half-burned cigarette.