They
looked, and they looked. Everywhere they looked. Jimmy even
looked fixedly at the ceiling, as though he thought the ring might
have bounced up there and stuck. But it hadn't.
"Then," said Mabel at last, "your housemaid must have stolen it.
That's all. I shall tell her I think so."
And she would have done it too, but at that moment the front door
banged and they knew that Eliza had gone forth in all the glory of
her best things to meet her "gentleman friend" .
"It's no use," Mabel was almost in tears; "look here will you leave
me alone? Perhaps you others looking distracts me. And I'll go
over every inch of the room by myself."
"Respecting the emotion of their guest, the kindly charcoal-burners
withdrew," said Gerald. And they closed the door softly from the
outside on Mabel and her search.
They waited for hers of course politeness demanded it, and
besides, they had to stay at home to let Mademoiselle in; though it
was a dazzling day, and Jimmy had just remembered that Gerald's
pockets were full of the money earned at the fair, and that nothing
had yet been bought with that money, except a few buns in which
he had had no share. And of course they waited impatiently.
It seemed about an hour, and was really quite ten minutes, before
they heard the bedroom door open and Mabel's feet on the stairs.
"She hasn't found it," Gerald said.
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