Mr. Whitney dropped back into his revolving desk chair and swung it toward her with a lurch of his body: "She tells a very clear story—extremely clear. I’ll let you get your own impression of it and then we’ll have a talk with Mrs. Babbitts and you can see—" A knock on the door interrupted him; in answer to his "Come in," Esther entered. She halted a moment on the threshold, her eyes touching the faces of her employers questioningly, as if she was not sure of her reception. But Mrs. Janney’s quick, "Oh, Miss Maitland, I want to see you," brought her across the sill. Though she looked harassed and distressed, her manner showed a restrained composure. She took a chair facing them, meeting their glances with a steady directness. Mrs. Janney’s demand for information was promptly answered; indeed her narrative was so devoid of unnecessary detail, so confined to essentials, that it suggested something gone over and put in readiness for the telling. She had taken Bébita to the dressmaker and the oculist, the child accompanying her into both places. At the third stop, Justin’s, she had persuaded Bébita to stay in the taxi. She had left it at the curb and had not been more than ten minutes in the store. When she came out it was gone. She had spent some time looking for it, searched up and down the street, and, though she was frightened, she could not believe anything had happened. Her idea had been that Bébita, tired of waiting or wanting to play a joke on her, had prevailed on the driver to return to the Fifth Avenue house. She had hailed a cab and gone back there and it was not till she saw Mrs. Price that she realized the real extent of the calamity. Mrs. Price had been utterly overwhelmed, and, not knowing what else to do, she had called up Grasslands for instructions. Mr. Janney, who had been twisting and turning on his chair, burst out with: "The man—the driver—did you notice him?" She lifted her hands and dropped them in her lap. "Oh, Mr. Janney, _of course_ I didn’t. Does any one _ever_ look at those men? He never got off his seat, opened the door by stretching his arm round from the front. I have a sort of vague memory of his face when I called him off the stand, and I think—but I can’t be sure—that he wore goggles." "It’s needless to ask if you remember the number," Mrs. Janney said. The girl answered with a hopeless shake of the head. "You say you ran about looking for the taxi"—it was Mr. Janney again—"Why did you waste that time?" "Mr. Janney," she leaned toward him insistent, but with patience for his afflicted state, "I thought it had gone somewhere farther along. You know how they won’t let the vehicles stand in Fifth Avenue. I supposed it was down the block or round the corner on a side street. I asked the doorman but he hadn’t noticed. I looked in every direction and even when I finally gave up and went after her I hadn’t an idea that she’d been _stolen_."