was beginning to fancy myself a bit as a Raffles when, all of a sudden-Pow!" he laughed-"that fat devil landed on my devoted neck with all the force and fury of two hundredweight of professional jealousy!
"And then," he added, "in you walked from God knows where-"
His eyes affixed a point of interrogation to the simple declarative.
She started nervously in response, divided between impulses which she had no longer sufficient wit to weigh. Should she confess, or try to lie out of it?
Must she believe this glibly simple and adequate account or reject it on grounds of pardonable skepticism?
If this man were what he professed to be, surely he must recognise her borrowed plumage as his sister's property. True, that did not of necessity follow; men have so little understanding of women's clothing; it pleases them or it displeases, if thrust upon their attention, but once withdrawn it is forgotten utterly. Such might well be the case in this present instance; the man gave Sally, indeed, every reason to believe him as much bewildered and mystified by her as she was by him.
On the other hand, and even so.
The infatuate impulse prevailed, to confess and take the consequences.
"I'm afraid-" she began in a quaver.
"No need to be-none I know of, at least," he volunteered promptly, if without moderating his exacting stare.
"You don't understand-"
She hesitated, sighed, plunged in desperation. "It's no use; there's nothing for me to do but own up. What you were not to-night, Mr. Savage, I was."
"Sounds like a riddle to me. What is the answer?"
"You were just make-believe. I was the real thing-a real thief. No, let me go on; it's easier if you don't interrupt. Yes, I'll tell you my name, but it won't mean anything. I'm nobody. I'm Sarah Manvers. I'm a shop-girl out of work."
"Still I don't see."
"I'm coming to that. I live on your block-the Lexington Avenue end, of course-with two other girls. And this afternoon-the studio was so hot and stuffy and lonesome, with both my friends away-I went up on the roof for better air, and fell asleep there and got caught by the storm. Somebody had closed the scuttle, and I ran across roofs looking for another that wasn't fastened down, and when I found one-it was your house-I was so frightened by the lightning I hardly knew what I was doing. I just tumbled in-"
"And welcome, I'm sure," Blue Serge interpolated.
She blundered on, unheeding: "I went all through the house, but there wasn't anybody, and-I was so wet and miserable that I-made myself at home-decided to take a bath and-and borrow some things to wear until my own were dry. And then I thought."
She halted, confused, realising how impossible it would be to convince anybody with the tale of her intention merely to borrow the clothing for a single night of arabesque adventure, finding it difficult now to believe in on her own part, and hurried breathlessly on to cover the hiatus.
"And then I heard a noise on the roof. I had closed the scuttle, but I was frightened. And I crept down-stairs and-saw the light in the library and.. That's all." And when he didn't reply promptly, she added with a trace of challenge: "So now you know!"
He started as from deep reverie.
"But why call yourself a thief-for that?"
"Because.. because." Overstrung nerves betrayed her in gusty confession. "Because it's no good blinking facts: that's what I was in my heart of hearts. Oh, it's all very well for you to be generous, and for me to pretend I meant only to borrow, and-and all that! But the truth is, I did steal-and I never honestly meant to send the things back. At first-yes; then I meant to return them, but never once they were on my back. I told myself I did, I believed I did; but deep down, all along, I didn't, I didn't, I didn't! I'm a liar as well as a thief."
"Oh, come now!" Blue Serge interjected in a tone of mild remonstrance, lounging back and eying the girl intently. "Don't be so down on yourself."
"Well, everything I've said was true except that one word 'borrow'; but that in itself was a lie big enough to eclipse every word of truth… But you'll never understand-never! Men can't. They simply can't know what it is to be clothes-hungry-starving for something fit to wear-as I have been for years and years and years, as most of us in the shops are all our lives long."
"Perhaps I understand, though," he argued with an odd look. "I know what you mean, at any rate, even if I'm not ready to admit that shop-girls are the only people who ever know what it is to desire the unattainable. Other people want things, at times, just as hard as you do clothes."
"Well, but." She stammered, unable to refute this reasonable contention, but, womanlike, persistent to try: "It's different-when you've never had anything. Try to think what it must be to work from eight till six-sometimes later-six days a week, for just enough to keep alive on, if you call such an existence being alive! Why, in ten years I haven't seen the country or the sea-unless you count trips to Coney on crowded trolley-cars, and mighty few of them. I never could afford a vacation, though I've been idle often enough-never earned more than ten dollars a week, and that not for many weeks together. I've lived on as little as five-on as little as charity, on nothing but the goodness of my friends at times. That's why, when I saw myself prettily dressed for once, and thought nothing could stop my getting away, I couldn't resist the temptation. I didn't know where I was going, dressed like this, and not a cent; but I was going some place, and I wasn't ever coming back!"
"Good Lord!" the man said gently. "Who'd blame you?"
"Don't sympathise with me," she protested, humanly quite unconscious of her inconsistency. "I don't deserve it. I'm caught with the goods on, literally, figuratively, and I've got to pay the penalty. Oh, I don't mean what you mean. I'm no such idiot as to think you'll have me sent to jail; you've been too kind already and-and, after all, I did do you a considerable service, I did help you out of a pretty dangerous fix. But the penalty I'll pay is worse than jail: it's giving up these pretty things and all my silly, sinful dreams, and going back to that scrubby studio-and no job-"
She pulled up short, mystified by a sudden change in the man's expression, perceiving that she was no longer holding his attention as completely as she had. She remarked his look of embarrassment, that his eyes winced from something descried beyond and unknown to her. But he was as ready as ever to recover and demonstrate that, if his attention had wandered, he hadn't missed the substance of her harangue; for when she paused he replied:
"Oh, perhaps not. Don't let's jump at conclusions. I've a premonition you won't have to go back. Here comes some one who'll have a word to say about that-or I don't know!"
And he was up before Sally had grasped his meaning-on his feet and bowing civilly, if with a twinkling countenance, to a woman who swooped down upon him in a sudden, wild flutter of words and gestures:
"Walter! Thank God I've found you! I've been so upset-hardly knew what to do-when you didn't show up.."
What more she might have said dried instantly on the newcomer's lips as her gaze embraced Sally. She stiffened slightly and drew back, elevating her eyebrows to the frost-line.
"Who is this woman? What does this mean?" Without awaiting an answer to either question, she observed in accents that had all the chilling force and cutting edge of a winter wind:
"My dress! My hat!"
CHAPTER V
CONSPIRACY
