Marie Belloc Lowndes

“ Mabel looked across at the speaker, and reddened deeply. She felt very angry. Never in the course of her pleasant, easy, prosperous life had any one ventured to dismiss her in this fashion from their house. She rose to her feet.
And then in a moment there occurred that which transformed her anger into agonized fear and amazement. The back of her neck was grazed by something sharp and cold. She gave a smothered cry. Her string of pearls had parted in two, and the pearls were now falling, one by one with dull thuds, and rolling all over the floor. ”

“ He was going into the kitchen to make the coffee.
“Mr. Oldchester was telling me of your valuable pearls,” said Madame Wachner pleasantly. “I was surprised! What a lot of money to hang round one's neck! But it is worth it, if one has so lovely a neck as has the little Mab-bel. May I look at them, or do you never take them off?”
Mabel unclasped the string of pearls, and laid it on the table.
“Yes, they are nice,” she said. “I always wear them, even at night. Many people have a knot made between each pearl, for that of course makes the danger of losing them much less should the string break. ”

“ There are rogues in every pension, perhaps even in the Pension Noir, if we knew everything!” went on Madame Wachner, laughing her hearty, jovial laugh. “By the way, Ami Fritz, have you written that letter to the Pension Noir?” She turned to Mabel. “We are anxious to get a room in your pension for a friend.” ”

“ We must not run that risk! The pearls must be found now, at once.” She made a gesture as if she also meant to bend down and seek for them. “Stoop!” she said imperiously. “Stoop, Mab-bel! Help me to find your pearls.”
But Mabel Blackett made no attempt to obey the order. Instead she gradually edged toward the closed window. At last she stood with her back to it, with Madame Wachner rather to her right, Wachner to her left.
“No,” she said, “I will not stoop and pick up my pearls now, Madame Wachner. It will be easier to look in the daylight. Monsieur Wachner will find them to-morrow morning.” ”

“ However, as you are here, you may as well lay a third place in the dining room; for, as you see, we have brought madame back to have a little supper. She will only stay a very few moments; she has to be home at her pension by ten o'clock.”
Mabel, as is often the case with those who have been much thrown with French people, could understand French much better than she could speak it, and what Madame Wachner had just said surprised and puzzled her. ”

“ Without again looking at Mabel, the woman went out of the room. A moment later the front door slammed behind her.
“My wife discovered that it is Annette's fête day to-morrow. No doubt that was why she stayed on to-night.”
Madame Wachner came in.
“Oh, those French people!” she exclaimed. “How greedy they are for money! But—well, the woman has earned her present very fairly.” She shrugged her shoulders. ”

“ Madame Wachner spoke very persuasively. “I should be really sorry if you did not take your coffee—indeed, it would make me think you were angry with us because of the very bad supper we have given you. L'Ami Fritz would not have taken the trouble to make coffee for his old wife; he has made it for you, only for you; he will be hurt if you do not take it.”
The coffee did look very tempting. Mabel had always disliked coffee in America, but somehow French coffee was quite different ”

“ Mabel grew a little red. “But, as I said just now, they are always increasing in value. Even Mr. Oldchester, who did not approve of my getting these pearls, admits that.”
Through the open door she thought she heard Monsieur Wachner coming back down the passage. So she suddenly took the pearls out of the other woman's hand, and clasped the string about her neck again.
“L'Ami Fritz” came into the room. He was holding rather awkwardly a little tray, on which were two cups—one a small cup, the other a large cup, both filled to the brim with black coffee. ”

“ It was nice of the Wachners to ask her back to supper at the Châlet des Muguets. It would have been lonely this evening at the Pension Noir. Mabel felt curiously deserted—the thought that Paul De Poupel would leave Enghien had never occurred to her.
“I'm quite ready.” And then addressing herself more particularly to Madame Wachner, who she knew disliked walking: “Shall we take a carriage?” she asked diffidently.
Mabel meant the carriage to be her share of the evening's junketing.
“No, no,” said Monsieur Wachner shortly. “There is no need to take a carriage to-night ”