Hortense Markle had besought the friends of Mary Louise to come and call on her, but when Elizabeth Wright was ushered into the charming little drawing room bent on the mission intrusted to her by her partner, she had a feeling that she was not quite so welcome as she had been led to expect. Could it be because she interrupted a tête-a-tête between her hostess and Billy McGraw? That young man seemed to be very much at home in the little apartment, as though he had paid many visits there in the short time he had been acquainted with the charming Mrs. Markle.

Elizabeth was a little embarrassed but determined to fulfill her mission before she left. She liked Billy and hated to see him making a fool of himself over the pretty adventuress. She wished she could save him from the bitter chagrin that would be sure to be his when the sorry business would finally come to light, but158 her loyalty to Josie forbade her doing or saying a thing to put him on his guard. Then he had paid her just enough attention to make it possible for him to think that jealousy prompted her in anything she might do or say.

“We have been very busy at the shop to-day,” Elizabeth began, in a rather loud tone as though determined that her voice would be heard by Hortense and her husband too, if he had concealed himself somewhere behind the curtains. “Irene finished mending the lace and then Josie laundered the whole lot and I have just delivered it to its owner.”

“Ah, indeed!” ejaculated Hortense.

Was there a note of disappointment in her voice?

“I rather wanted to see that lace again. It was a beautiful pattern. I have a passion for fine and rare lace.”

“Well, it’s safe with the rich old lady who brought it to us,” said Elizabeth, bluntly.

“You are quite wise to get it in safe keeping as soon as possible,” said Hortense, suavely.

“By the way, you never have let me see the orchid pin,” put in Billy. “You remember you promised.”

159 “Why, of course! I’ll get it immediately.”

She was gone from the room for a few moments. Elizabeth, who usually was very much at home with Billy McGraw, now sat in silence. For the moment she had nothing to say. He looked at her a little uneasily.

“Are you—are you—kind of angry with me?” he finally said.

“I? The idea! Why should I be angry with you?”

“I don’t know. You don’t seem so—so—chummy as you do sometimes.”

“Chummy? I did not know I had been quite that,” she said with a touch of coldness that she could not keep from her tones.

“Now I know you have got it in for me somehow.”

Elizabeth said nothing as Hortense came back in the room with the orchid pin which she handed to Billy.

“My, it’s a peach!” he declared. He examined it with great interest. “It is as near like Vi Thomas’ as can be. Hers, of course, had Tiffany’s mark on the back and a date, as I remember, some date that meant something to her and her husband.

160 “Mine just has the name Felix loves to call me, ‘Pet.’ It sounds awfully silly and sentimental, but he would have it on.”

“Can’t I see it?” asked Elizabeth, wishing in her heart she had a magnifying glass handy, feeling sure there would be marks of other things to be disclosed. She noticed that the gold mounting back of the pin was slightly concave. “No doubt Josie will attach much importance to that,” she said to herself.

“You promised some day to show me your original Rembrandt etching,” she said to Hortense. “I have never seen one.”

“Have you an original Rembrandt?” asked Billy. “You never told me. I’d certainly like to see it. The Thomases had a crackerjack of a Rembrandt. Of course that was lifted too when the orchid pin was.”

“Heavens! what luck. Those Thomases seem to be perfect Jonahs,” laughed Hortense. Elizabeth thought she detected a little sharp note in her laugh.

“I am terribly sorry not to show you my treasure of treasures, but the frame was pulling loose a bit and Felix has taken it to have it mended. Anything as precious as a Rembrandt161 must be framed in an airtight frame. Felix has been offered a huge sum for our Rembrandt and I am trembling for fear he might sell it. Of course, I know that persons of our means have no business owning such a rare etching but I would so hate to part with it. Felix is something of a speculator in such things, while I have more the soul of the born collector.”

“I should think you would live in continual fear of having your things snatched from you,” said Elizabeth, wondering at her own cruelty in making such a remark.

“I do,” said Hortense, sadly. “Why, Felix is so keen on a trade that I shouldn’t be astonished if he wanted sometime to sell my lovely orchid pin.”

“Ah, but the ‘Pet’ engraved on the back would keep him from doing that,” suggested Billy, thinking what a mercenary brute the husband must be.

“Oh, but that could be taken off,” said Elizabeth with an air of childlike innocence. “We had some marks taken off some silver one time. It was the initials of a person who had married into my father’s family and had her initials put on an old family tea service. She had no right162 to the service and the service was ruined in our eyes by the addition of her initials. Of course, it meant some of the thickness of the silver had to be sacrificed to get rid of the engraving and there is almost a concavity where there used to be a convexity, but we prefer that to the initials of the interloper.”

“Oh, please don’t tell my husband such a thing could be done,” was Hortense’s playful rejoinder. “He would surely get some of the eraser and take off the ‘Pet.’ Of course, this little pin is very valuable as a work of art and I shouldn’t object if we get really hard up. I have never been an unreasonable wife, and we have had our ups and downs.”

“You might write to your friend Mr. Thomas,” Elizabeth suggested to Billy, “and tell him there is a chance for him to buy the duplicate of the pin his wife lost.” Elizabeth well understood she was teasing Mrs. Markle, but could not resist doing it, feeling assured that she was supposed to be unconscious of so doing.

“Don’t do it! Please don’t do it!” begged Hortense, plainly alarmed. “If this Mr. Thomas hears of this pin he might make a bid for it and Felix is almost sure to take him up, although it163 does belong to me. I couldn............