# The Golden Rule Dollivers (collection)/The Old Dears

pp. 20–45. First published in Harper's Magazine in March 1912 as The Dollivers' Old Dears"

### II
#### THE OLD DEARS

NOT on that day, however, nor for many succeeding days, did Dolliver evince the slightest interest in the passing pedestrian along the roads they traversed. Indeed, it was his studious avoidance of comment upon these wayfarers, to whom he usually gave a lively attention, rather than anything he actually said about the Corbin episode, that led Marjorie gradually to perceive how sore a spot that encounter had left.
Once, and only once, during those first weeks did she renew her persuasive suggestion that what Page had called "the automobile game" was too promising to be renounced after one fiasco, whereupon her husband swore picturesquely, by his tribal gods, never again to offer succor, support, or transportation to any one whose name, age, antecedents, and conditions of servitude, past and present, were unknown to him, and there the matter rested.
However, there remained quite a field for their altruistic activities within the limits he set, as their little circle of acquaintances increased rapidly, and there was hardly a day when they did not add to their own delight in their car by sharing it with less fortunate friends. Of these, the one whom they saw most often, as time wore on, was Mrs. Everett Cheever, a childless widow who lived alone in their immediate neighborhood, and who seemed to be making a brave struggle against many hardships, of which, however, she never spoke directly, evidently preferring to forget them when she could. This cheeriness in the face of adversity especially appealed to the Dollivers, and little by little it became their habit, when there was no more immediate claim upon their hospitality, to ask Mrs, Cheever to share their outings, not infrequently including one or more of her friends in the invitation.
For a long time this gentle, middle-aged woman was the only person to whom Marjorie confided the story of their experience with Corbin, and her indignation was warm.
"You poor dears!" she cried. "To be so angelically generous and so misunderstood!"
"Perhaps one needs to be generous if one happens to enjoy sharing things," suggested Marjorie, with a passing touch of cynicism.
"Oh, don't say that! Though I don't wonder you feel that way just now. But not everybody would be so unappreciative. That man was a curmudgeon!" Mrs. Cheever thus bestowed upon Corbin the sobriquet by which Marjorie ever afterward referred to him, adding, charitably: "Of course, business does make many people hard and suspicious, and I dare say he's had his share of trouble. But I'm sure no woman would ever misconstrue your motives so cruelly, and certainly no one who knows you, even ever so slightly, could fail to perceive how rarely sweet and generous you both are."
"Oh no, we're not! We only do what we like to do. But Page insists that never, never, never again will he pick up a stranger from the road!"
It looked for a time as though he would persist in that resolution. Late in July, however, there came a very hot Sunday, when, an expected guest having disappointed them, he and Marjorie set off alone, not dreaming that they went toward adventure.
Humming through the city and out into green country ways, they saw street-cars and trains packed to the steps with pushing, swaying, perspiring humanity, and were more than ever thankful for the little touring-car, and more than ever willing to practise the economies its operation entailed, since through its magic properties urban limitations ceased to bind them, and the whole wide beautiful countryside became their playground.
"Marjorie, how much do you really love your fellow-man?" whimsically asked her husband, slowing up at the point of transfer of two suburban trolley lines, on each of which a crowded car was giving up, not without violent internal paroxysms, a half-score of panting, empurpled passengers, who swarmed across the road to force their way into the car on the other track.
"Heaps—in the abstract, and at a suitable distance," she dryly returned, following his thought.
"In other words, you respect his spirit, but your own flesh," he translated.
FRAIL, SWEET-LOOKING OLD WOMEN
"Well, I shouldn't deliberately choose to be pressed into a sort of human headcheese with him, if that's what you mean. Not by way of recreation on a holiday, at least," she rejoined. "Of the two, I should much prefer to sit on the peak of a desert island, eating breadfruit and watching for a sail."
"You pain me, Marjorie," he drawled. "You pain me deeply. Can it be that you're a snob?"
"It can," she placidly returned. "All really nice people are," whereat they both laughed, and Page increased the speed, the way being clear again.
The automobile darted ahead of the following trolley-car, but they had covered a comparatively short distance when Dolliver stopped abruptly, exclaiming:
"By George!"
"What?" asked his wife, startled. "What is it?"
"Did you see those two old ladies standing by the side of the road?"
"Yes." Marjorie twisted in her seat beside him to look back at them. "Why? Who are they?"
"I don't know who they are, but they're waiting for that car, where there isn't standing-room for a fishing-rod. Let's go back and pick them up. Shall we?"
"Oh, let's!" she joyfully echoed. "That is—of course—" She twinkled a little, glancing at him askance.
"I know." He flushed uncomfortably. "But—confound it, Marjorie, these are women! Frail, sweet-looking little old women. And they'd be crushed to pulp in that car in no time. We can't deliberately abandon them to that. I'm going back."
"0f course you're going back, you Joy-forever," she gloried, with shining eyes. "Oh, Page, you're such a satisfying person to live with!"
He grinned appreciatively, but said only:
"You ask 'em, Marjoricums. I might scare 'em. They look shy."
So, as the car stopped, pretty Mrs. Dolliver leaned out toward the old ladies, her manner the more cordial because they withdrew a pace, with the look of startled suspicion which the uninvited speech of a stranger brings to many faces.
"If you're going up the road, won't you let us take you?" she began. "We'd like to."
One of the old ladies was short, slender, and very erect, and was dressed in silvery-gray silk trimmed with cut-steel beads. The other, in black, was tall and a little bent, and seemed fragile. They glanced at each other uncertainly, and then the smaller one replied, rather stiffly:
"Thank you. We won't trouble you. The car is coming now."
"Yes, it's coming, but it's already packed full," gently urged Marjorie. "We passed it a moment ago, and there is hardly standing-room in it—and everybody's so hot and steamy and horrid! Do let us take you wherever you're going, won't you?"
Meanwhile, Page had stepped out from his place behind the wheel, and was standing, cap in hand, holding open the door of the tonneau and hospitably smiling.
"It would give us very great pleasure," he said, genially. "We should hate to think of you in that crowded car, when we have empty seats here."
"Why—you're very kind," hesitated the taller of the two, "very thoughtful, but—" She and the other exchanged indecisive glances again. "But isn't there some mistake?"
"No, indeed; we truly want you to come. How could there be any mistake about that?" Marjorie's manner was very winning.
"Oh, I remember!" suddenly exclaimed the old lady in black, softly, in a relieved tone. Then, with penitent affability: "I do hope you'll pardon my sister and me if we seemed just a little ungracious at first. We're getting old and absent-minded—and to tell the truth, we don't see as clearly as we might, my dear."
As she spoke, she stepped toward the automobile, followed by her sister, and Marjorie sprang out, exclaiming:
"Oh, goody! This is delightful! Now I'm going to ask you," to the taller one, who was evidently the elder, "to sit in front beside my husband, and your sister and I will sit in the tonneau."
The young couple solicitously helped their elderly guests into their seats, and while Page went to crank the engine Marjorie pulled a couple of dust-rugs off the rod. As she turned to shake them out she heard the little old lady in the tonneau ask in a sharp whisper:
"Sallie, who are they?"
"Mrs. Holden's friends—don't you remember? I've forgotten their names," replied the sister in front.
"Nonsense! They were brother and sister." retorted the first. "These two are married."
"Are they? Well, perhaps they were married all the time," placidly returned the other. "Perhaps we misunderstood. We often do. Anyway, they evidently know us—and they are very nice," she concluded.
"Oh, aren't they darlings?" murmured Marjorie to her husband, as he took the rugs from her.
"Perfect old dears," he whispered. "No dregs in this loving-cup, girlie. This is the real thing."
As they were about to start, the trolley-car whirred past, and the old lady beside Page looked after it with dismayed eyes.
"Dear me!" she exclaimed. "Emily, we never could have squeezed into that car in the world! How terrible for people to be herded together so—especially in such weather! And here—why, here there is actually a breeze!"
"Almost too much of a breeze," laughed Marjorie, gathering in the ends of her long, azure veil, which had blown across the face of the lady in gray. "I beg your pardon! I'll try to keep it in order." An effort, be it said, in which she was only partially successful. "I can't bear to tie it up tight under my chin in this heat, and it's attached to my bonnet, so I can't easily take it off." Then, noticing that the other was fussing at a refractory glove-button, "May I help you with that? Perhaps I can button it more easily than you."
"No, thank you," said the little gray lady, whose manner was still guarded. "There, it's off! No matter. Don't trouble."
"Here it is." Marjorie caught the tiny disk as it slipped down over the linen lap-robe, and returned it to the gray, silk-covered hand held out for it, her face lighting charmingly in response to the first spontaneous smile the other had yielded.
"Now, where shall we take you?" asked Dolliver, when again they had left the trolley-car behind.
"We were going home," said the one called Sallie.
"And 'home' is—?"
"I thought you knew. We live just across the street from the Holdens."
"I'm afraid I shall have to ask a little more explicit directions than that," he confessed. "Is it Hastings? Or Irvington? Or Tarry town?"
"Why, Dobbs Ferry, of course. Didn't we meet you and your wife at Mrs. Holden's the other day?"
At this moment the one called Emily, who had been conducting investigations of her own on the back seat, exclaimed:
"There, Sallie, what did I tell you? These are not Mrs. Holden's friends at all! They were brother and sister! I'm sure they were!"
"Then who—when— I'm very sorry, but I'm afraid I don't remember where we did meet you," faltered the other, looking at Page in bewilderment.
"I think we've never met before," he told her, gently, "but that seemed to us a poor reason for letting you be crushed and pushed and stepped on in that street-car, when we were going the same way, with an empty tonneau behind us."
"Why—that's very kind! Emily, isn't that very kind?"
"You see," eagerly broke in Marjorie, "we've always said that half the fun of owning an automobile would be in sharing it occasionally with some of the nice people who hadn't one, regardless of whether or not we knew them socially."
"What a beautiful idea!" commented the sister in front.
"It sounds like Socialism," said the little lady beside Marjorie, severely. "Are you Socialists?"
"Oh, mercy, no!" laughed Mrs. Dolliver. "We're just—just people who happen to have a new car and want to get all the fun we can out of it, for ourselves and others."
"It sounds to me like practical Christianity—a literal application of the Golden Rule," said the gentle Sallie.
"Oh, please!" begged Majorie, laughing again, but conscious that Page flushed and turned away his face. "You'll embarrass my husband terribly if you say that. Somebody called him Golden Rule Dolliver the other day, and he didn't like it a bit. He says this is just a new kind of game we've made for ourselves, and we hope other people—people like you—are going to enjoy playing it with us."
"I think there can be little doubt of that," said the lady beside Page.
"Under the circumstances, however, it is high time that we should introduce ourselves," asserted the other, crisply. "I am Miss Manchester, my sister is Mrs. Whitney, and we live together in Dobbs Ferry. You, I take it, are Mrs.—Dolliver?"
"Yes," affirmed Marjorie. "Page Dolliver is my husband's name, and we now live in New York, although we are really Western people."
It transpired that Mrs. Whitney and Miss Manchester had once been West, and the talk thereafter was all of Pikes Peak, and the Grand Cañon, Yellowstone, and Yosemite, until, twenty minutes later. Page stopped the car before their house, a dignified old structure, set back amid smooth lawns and surrounded by fine trees.
Then said Miss Manchester, sharply, after some hasty fumbling in her lap and about her feet:
"Sallie, have you my purse?"
"Your purse? Why, no, Emily. Why should I have it?" wonderingly returned her sister.
"Well, it isn't here! I had it—but it isn't here!" declared the other. "It's gone!" She regarded Dolliver with startled eyes.
"Perhaps it slipped down to the floor of the car," he suggested. "If you'll step out we'll look for it. Don't be alarmed. Miss Manchester. It must be here, you know, if you had it."
"If I had it? Of course I had it," she asserted. "I paid the car-fare going down. You remember that, Sallie, because you said you'd left your purse at home."
"Yes, I remember that," said Sallie. "You did have it, going down."
"What kind of a purse is it, Miss Manchester?" questioned Marjorie.
"It's a small, silver-meshed thing—just a coin-purse. I use it for car-fare, and carried it in my hand."
"Well, it must be here somewhere," cheerfully assumed Mrs. Dolliver. By this time they were all standing about the car, and Page had removed and shaken the dust-rugs. Now he began searching behind and beneath all the cushions. "It's so easy to overlook one of those little chain-purses," reassuringly continued his wife, "because they crumple up into such small space. I have one, and it's always eluding me and giving me a fright. We'll surely find yours in a minute. Page dear, it must be there! Did you look in the pockets?"
"How could it get into a pocket?" he asked; but he obediently searched through them, while she stepped nearer, eagerly watching.
"I do hope you haven't lost it," sighed Mrs. Whitney.
"I don't quite see how I could have lost it." Miss Manchester spoke in a careful undertone, gazing steadily at her sister.
"Oh, my dear! You don't mean—!" the elder whispered, gasping, and turned an agitated glance upon the unheeding Dollivers. "Oh—Emily! How can you!"
"'Sh!" warned the little gray lady. "If we manage it right it probably won't be necessary to say anything definite. I hope we may be spared—publicity."
"IT'S SO EASY TO OVERLOOK ONE OF THOSE LITTLE CHAIN-PURSES"
"But—Emily, they're such nice people!"
"They do seem nice." admitted Emily, "but you never can tell. I see Dick Holden over there. I'm going to tell him."
"Oh no, not Dick!" whispered the other, in a flutter. "You wouldn't do that, Emily! Not yet! Do wait!" But Miss Manchester, seizing a moment when the backs of the busy Dollivers were turned, beckoned imperatively to a young man lounging on the veranda of a house across the way. "Perhaps you dropped it as you got out," Mrs. Whitney was urging, and began an anxious scrutiny of the ground around the car.
"Good afternoon," called the young man as he approached. "Anything the matter, Miss Emily? Can I help?"
"I hope you can," she replied, disregarding her sister's imploring glance and slight deprecating gesture. "My purse is—missing." Something in her tone made both Page and Marjorie turn sharply toward her, but she was looking at the new-comer—a clean-cut, steady-eyed fellow of thirty or thereabout.
"Missing!" he repeated, glancing at the Dollivers. You mean you've lost it?"
"Y-yes, I seem to have lost it—though I don't see how I could. Anyway, it can't be found now, and—what shall I do?"
"Well, I should say scurry back wherever you've been and look for it," he recommended. "Been motoring?"
"N-no—" began Miss Manchester, but her sister interrupted.
"Yes. That is—not exactly. We were on our way home from Harrietts, and were waiting for the trolley-car, when these young people came along and very kindly offered to bring us home. Let me present you. Mrs. Dolliver—Mr. Dolliver—this is our friend and neighbor, Mr. Holden."
"Glad to meet you, Mr. Dolliver," said the young man, cordially shaking hands with Page, after bowing to Marjorie.
"Mr. Holden is also our deputy sheriff," mentioned Miss Manchester, in a casual tone, and again both Page and Marjorie looked sharply at her and then at each other. Holden, too, threw her a puzzled glance, which developed a twinkle as he turned it upon the Dollivers, though he was obviously embarrassed.
"'Some are born great, some achieve greatness,'" he began, flushing and laughing a little, but Mrs. Whitney fluttered anxiously into the conversation again.
"My sister and I are very proud of Mr. Holden's office," she explained. "In this day of saloon-keeping politicians one rarely finds a gentleman who stands ready to do his duty and bear his share of the civic responsibility."
"Oh, come, Mrs. Whitney," remonstrated Holden, red and laughing, "it isn't as bad as all that! Some of the boys thought it would be rather a joke to have me appointed a deputy," he added, turning to Dolliver, "and I didn't refuse the office, as I was expected to do. So I'm sort of an accident, officially. The duties of my exalted position thus far have been conspicuously few, however, and I'm not getting half the fun out of it that you might think."
"Don't be discouraged, Dick," dryly advised Miss Manchester. "You may be called upon sooner than you anticipate."
"It was at the Holdens' that we thought we had met you, you know," Mrs. Whitney here made haste to remind Marjorie.
"At our house?" puzzled her neighbor.
"Yes. But we learned later that we had never met Mr. and Mrs. Dolliver before at all," Miss Manchester explained, regarding him steadily.
"Oh?" Again he turned upon the young couple a perplexed, scrutinizing glance, which ended in a smile. "I see. You have never met them before, either."
"Even now we seem to have achieved that honor through a misapprehension," whimsically explained Page. "We saw these ladies waiting for the car, and as we had just passed it and knew it to be crammed full already, and we had plenty of room, we asked them to come on with us."
"And Sallie immediately jumped to the conclusion that they were those young people whom we met at your house last week. I told her those two were brother and sister," said Emily, "but she was quite positive."
"Anyway, it was simply the more kind of Mr. and Mrs. Dolliver, since they didn't know us," persisted Mrs. Whitney. Little red spots were burning in her withered cheeks, and her speech was quick and nervous. "They said it was a new kind of game they had made for themselves—sharing their car with people—even perfect strangers like us—whom they might help. Isn't that a beautiful idea, Richard?"
"Well, certainly it's an ingenious way of enlarging one's experience," he returned, dryly. "Faithfully put into practice, I should say that idea might be productive of many interesting complications."
"You're quite right about that," affirmed Dolliver, with a dubious little smile. "It has been."
Holden's keen, quiet glance touched him for a moment, and then swept the others of the group.
"But what about the purse?" he asked. "Where does that come in?"
"It comes in right there," said Miss Manchester. "We accepted the very thoughtful invitation of these young people, still supposing them to be your friends, Dick, and they brought us home."
"Directly?"
"Directly. And when we got here—I couldn't find my purse."
"Sure you had it?"
"Why, of course I had it!" she indignantly returned. "Haven't I told you that I paid the car-fare?"
"Coming back?"
"N-no—but I intended to pay it coming back. Sallie had no money with her."
"Then isn't it possible that you didn't have the purse, after all? That you left it down at Harriet's?" he suggested.
"Certainly not. I never leave my things about," she replied, somewhat curtly. "Certainly not. Absurd!"
"Now, Emily, perhaps you did," hopefully ventured Mrs. Whitney. "Why not telephone—"
"I'm perfectly certain I did not," interrupted her sister, fixedly regarding Holden, who met her gaze with a questioning glance, which he almost immediately averted. "I had the purse in my hand when I entered that automobile."
"Then, unless you have it still, it must be in the tonneau. I'm going to look myself," said Marjorie, stepping into the car.
"Was there much in it?" asked Holden.
"Not much money," slowly replied Miss Manchester, "but there were three diamond rings."
"Emily! Grandmother's rings!" cried her sister, distressfully.
"I took them off, because they wear holes in a silk glove, and dropped them into my purse—and I can't lose them, you know. They must—we must find them."
"We'll find them. Miss Manchester," said Dolliver, in a determined tone meant to be reassuring; but Holden, whose face was beginning to set in grave lines, instantly bent upon him a more searching glance. "We'll find them, if we have to hunt all night. Now, tell us, if you can, just when you remember actually having the purse last. You are positive you had it when you entered the car?"
"Absolutely. Because I remember looking into it while we were waiting for the trolley, to see whether I had the exact change."
"If you had seen that trolley-car, Richard, you would realize from what these delightful young people saved us," interpolated Mrs. Whitney, with tremulous haste. "It was packed! We are so grateful—"
"Thats when it was!" triumphantly announced Miss Emily. "I had it then, because just after that car passed us one of my glove-buttons came off, and I dropped it into my purse. You must remember that?" She turned sharply toward Mrs. Dolliver, the others followed her example, and then all stood staring, startled by Marjorie's appearance.
She was standing in the tonneau, both hands clutching the long, full folds of her veil together below an ashen face, and in her eyes was an expression curiously resembling fear. In response to Miss Manchester's question she nodded mutely. Then, as they waited for further reply, she said, with apparent difficulty:
"Yes. I remember. You did have it—then."
"Then where is it now?" demanded the spinster.
"I beg your pardon," said Marjorie, her voice shaking a little. "Do I understand that you are asking—me—where your purse is?"
"You misinterpret Miss Manchester, dear," Dolliver told her, steadily. "She is, naturally, disturbed over the loss of her purse and her rings, but she understands perfectly," with a level glance at the lady in question, "that we are quite as desirous of finding them as she can be."
Miss Manchester murmured something non-committal, Holden transferred his keen gaze from Marjorie to her husband and back again to her agitated face, and Mrs. Whitney hastened to reiterate her belief that her sister had dropped the purse on the ground as she got out of the car, and to urge everybody to look for it there.
"Nonsense! Don't be absurd, Sallie," counseled the younger sister. "I hadn't stirred from my seat when I missed it." Nevertheless, Holden and Mrs. Whitney began another search of the ground around the car.
"Don't worry, dear," Page quietly said to Marjorie. "It has just slipped out of sight somewhere. We'll find it presently."
"Of course we'll find it," she replied, clearly. "I'm not worried—not in the least. Why should I be? I'm only sorry."
But although her color presently returned with feverish brightness, she still clutched the veil in one tense, nervous fist, and there was in her roving eyes an unnatural gleam. Page watched her openly, with anxious sympathy. Miss Manchester eyed both of them sharply now and then, and Holden stole speculative, troubled glances at them all. Meanwhile the fruitless search went on.
"You haven't—I suppose you haven't a pocket?" tentatively suggested Holden.
"A pocket? Certainly not! No properly dressed woman has anything as sensible as a pocket in these ridiculous days, even at my age," tartly returned Miss Manchester.
"Could it have been dropped out of the car in any way?"
"My dear Richard! Even if I had kept it in my hand, I do not ordinarily fling my arms about, and a silver-meshed purse, though it is light, is certainly not elastic, so it couldn't well have bounced out of my lap and over the side on a perfectly smooth road."
"No, I suppose not," dejectedly admitted Holden. "Still, it doesn't seem to be here, so suppose we run back over the road and see if we can find it. Mr. Dolliver will take us, I'm sure."
"Gladly," said Page.
"Don't be absurd, Dick!" Miss Manchester was growing impatient. "I tell you I had the purse in my hand after I entered that automobile, it could not possibly have jumped overboard by itself, and I missed it before I got out of the car here. Therefore, it must be here somewhere, and it—must—be—found."
"Very well," he acquiesced. "What do you suggest?"
"I see nothing for it but to make another—and more thorough—search." Again she met his glance with steady and significant eyes.
"Page, I suggest that we turn the car over to Miss Manchester and Mr. Holden," said Marjorie, her tone hard beneath its lightness. "Thus far we have done most of the hunting, and we have failed. Perhaps they will be more successful. Mr. Holden can search it, and Miss Manchester can superintend matters from the front seat. I'll abdicate." She stepped out of the tonneau and nodded to Holden. "Will you see if you can find it? We may have missed it, after all."
They were looking at her, her husband with startled wonder in his eyes and a little pucker between his brows, Mrs. Whitney hopefully, Miss Manchester suspiciously, and Holden keenly, his face now very stern. When he turned to Dolliver, Page met his glance with clear, steady eyes.
"Will you try?" he invited. "Perhaps we'd all be better satisfied.
"Thank you," said the deputy sheriff, and stepped into the tonneau.
"Page, help Miss Manchester into the front seat," continued Marjorie, in the same hard, bright tone. "She sat in the tonneau, and I want her to watch that search and be perfectly convinced that her purse is not there." Steadily smiling, she took the arm of the little gray lady, who stood beside her on the sidewalk, and piloted her around the car, where Dolliver met them. He noticed that the linen rugs had been tossed in a heap on the floor, and the spinster stood a moment on the step, Marjorie still supporting her elbow, while he reached in and pulled them out of her way. Then she established herself in the seat her sister had occupied and watched Holden, with a satirical and expectant smile, as he made a very thorough and elaborate search of the tonneau.
Meanwhile Marjorie withdrew to the sidewalk, at a little distance, where she leaned against a tree, regarding the couple in the car with bright, mocking eyes. As soon as possible her husband joined her.
"Don't, dear," he urged, gently. "Don't let yourself get nervous over this. It's bound to come out all right."
"Nervous!" she echoed, with a hard little laugh. "Page, you know perfectly well what that woman thinks!"
"Dear girl, she doesn't think," he said, humorously. "She jumps at conclusions. And when we find her purse, as we shall presently—for she's perfectly right in saying that it must be here somewhere—she's going to feel so much worse about this than you do now that you'll be sorry for her."
"Sorry for her? Not I!" scoffed his wife.
"Yes, you will. She's going to have the worst attack of remorse you ever saw. Just wait a little—and keep cool, girlie, keep cool! It isn't going to help matters a bit if you lose your head and put yourself in a false light, you know."
She squared her shoulders and looked away for a moment before she asked, in pinched tones:
"Do you expect me to take a humorous view of it when they finish with the car, and—and search me?"
"They won't search you," he said, quietly. "Don't think of that for a moment. They won't search you, dear. Just keep your balance a little longer."
"I'll try," she replied, after another blank stare into space. "I'll try, Page. But you must go away. If you talk to me I—I shall cry."
"All right." He smiled at her, and turned back to the car at once, and Mrs. Whitney, seeing Marjorie standing apart and alone, quickly joined her.
At that moment Holden stood up in the tonneau, having gone through the last pocket, and looked from one to another of the group, shaking his head.
"It's not here," he said; then, to Miss Manchester: "You see. It's not here."
"It's somewhere," she returned, grimly. "I insist that it shall be found."
"What do you wish me to do now?" he asked.
"Continue the search." For an instant their glances met, his questioning and hers determined. "Continue until you find it."
"You mean—?"
"I rely upon you."
"Very well." He stepped out of the tonneau. "I think no one has examined the front part of the car. If you will change places with me I'll look there next."
"Ridiculous," she protested, still half kneeling in the front seat, her hands on its back, as she had been throughout his search of the tonneau. "How could it be here? I sat back there, with Mrs. Dolliver. Why waste time?"
"I prefer to make sure," he quietly persisted, holding up his hand to assist her. "Will you—" He stopped short, apparently staring at her feet for a moment, ejaculated, "By George!" and began to laugh.
"What? What is it? Have you found it?" they all cried.
"Ladies," he turned a quizzical face to Mrs. Whitney and Marjorie, both of whom were approaching, the elder woman hastily and Mrs. Dolliver more slowly, "is it—I ask in all humility, for these are mysteries no man may fathom"—his eyes were all a-twinkle again—"but is it the custom now to use silver purses to decorate the ends of sashes? This is a sash, isn't it?" He lifted the narrow strip of silk which fell at Miss Manchester's side, from her belt almost to the hem of her dress, and there, depending from the fringe of cut-steel beads with which it was finished, hung the object of their search, quite inconspicuous against the silvery tones of her gown.
"Why! Why!" Miss Manchester stared at her feet and sank into the seat again, holding the little purse in her hand. "I—why, how—the end of that sash must have been in my lap, and when I put the button away I must have closed my purse on a thread or two of the fringe. Oh, my dear!" remorsefully to Marjorie. "I'm so sorry! I'm so sorry to have given you and your husband all this trouble and anxiety. Can you ever forgive me?"
"Pray don't speak of it." Marjorie inclined her head slightly, with a chill little smile. "It is the greatest relief to us that you have at last found your purse."
"And caught in your own sash! Oh, Emily!" softly exclaimed Mrs. Whitney.
"And I trust you will find its contents quite undisturbed," continued Marjorie. "Perhaps you had better make sure."
"Oh, Mrs. Dolliver, please!" begged Miss Manchester. "And you won't—you can't go now! You will at least come in and let us give you a cup of tea? Mr. Dolliver, you will? Do help me persuade her!"
"Yes, at least for a cup of tea," echoed Mrs. Whitney, urgently.
Page looked at his wife, who replied that it would be quite impossible, since they had promised to take tea with friends several miles farther on, and were already late. No urging moved her, and the remorseful apologies for the delay, the excitement, the anxiety, and all that lay unmentioned beneath the surface, left her politely unresponsive. The only suggestion of warmth that she showed was in her farewell to gentle Mrs. Whitney, and as soon as possible, the men having exchanged cards and arranged to take luncheon together the following week, she and Page got away.
After a moment he turned to her with a chuckle. "This is a great game we've invented, isn't it?"
"Oh, Page—Page! Wasn't it awful?" she gasped. The idea of that woman supposing—the idea of her daring to think—!" Sudden sobs choked her, and she pulled her veil over her quivering face.
"Dearie, can't you see that it was a perfectly natural suspicion under the circumstances?" he asked, gently. "It did look queer for a while—especially you," he added, with another irrepressible chuckle. "Now that it's all over, I don't mind telling you that you were the very picture of guilt."
"Page, I-"
"Oh, I understood," he assured her. "I knew you were just startled and angry—and a little frightened. But if I'd been that deputy sheriff, and a total stranger to you, I'd have been dead sure that you had that purse."
"Page"—she swept the veil aside again, and both face and tone were tragical—"I did have it!"
"What?"
I did have the purse. She didn't close it on her steel fringe at all, but on a fold of my veil." She jerked out the words between sobs.
"But—why didn't you say so?"
"Because I didn't discover it—the veil is long and full—I never knew the thing was there until after that sheriff person appeared on the scene, and then—well, you see what they'd have thought then if I had produced the purse and told this improbable tale about just having found it hanging from my veil. They never would have believed I didn't give it up rather than have him find it!"
"But how, in the name of all that's black-magical, how did it come on the end of her sash, then?"
"I had to do something with it," sobbed Marjorie. "She meant to have me searched—yes, she did, too, Page! She suspected me from the very first! I wonder how Mrs. Cheever will reconcile this to her theory that no woman would ever misconstrue our motives? Even your Curmudgeon didn't take you for a thief! Then I saw the sash—and I made up my mind that if that purse was found on anybody, it would be on her! Horrid, suspicious old thing! That's the reason I made them search the tonneau. I knew it looked queer. I called you—but really I helped her into the car—and I took good care to be on the sash side. I knew there'd be some chance—and while she waited, on the step, for you to get those rugs out of the way, I—I did it!"
"Well, by gad!" ejaculated her husband. "Suppose somebody had caught you at it? What then?"
"But they didn't," she submitted, a smile gleaming through her tears. "You were quite right about one thing, though, dear. We won't play this automobile game any more. Never, never again!"
"Oh, I don't know," parleyed Dolliver. "It's not such a bad game. To be sure, Miss Emily was—Miss Emily, and you don't see the humorous side of her yet—"
"Humorous!"
"But that Holden chap is a good sort, and as for Mrs. Whitney, she's a perfect old duck!"
"Y-yes, she's a dear," Marjorie granted.
"Well, then? Besides, that street-car was no place for two old women, whatever their dispositions might be, and we did save them that. It's not such a bad game, now, is it, dearest? Let's play it some more—with discretion. Shall we?"
"Oh, Page," she sighed, still half sobbing, tucking her hand under his arm, "you're such a blessed, big, comforting, understanding sort of person to play with! After all, nothing else matters very much, does it?"