"She didn't show up, but telephoned again some time round four o'clock explaining that she had been in a taxicab accident in the Park and lost her way but finally got home--that is, to her hotel, the St. Simon. She said the necklace was safe--didn't mention the hat--and asked me to call for it at noon today. I said I would, and I'm by way of being late now. Doubtless she can explain how the hat came to you this way." "I'll be interested to hear," said Alison, "and to know that the necklace is really safe. On the face of it--as it stands--there's something queer--wrong.... What are you going to do?" Staff had moved toward the telephone. He paused, explaining that he was about to call up Miss Searle for reassurance. Alison negatived this instantly. "Why waste time? If she has the thing, the quickest way to get it is to go to her now--at once. If she hasn't, the quickest way to get after it is via the same route. I'm all ready and if you are we'll go immediately." Staff bowed, displeased with her manner to the point of silence. He had no objection to her being as temperamental as she pleased, but he objected strongly to having it implied by everything except spoken words that he was in some way responsible for the necklace and that Eleanor Searle was quite capable of conspiring to steal it. As for Alison, her humour was dangerously impregnated with the consciousness that she had played the fool to such an extent that she stood in a fair way to lose her necklace. Inasmuch as she knew this to be altogether her fault, whatever the outcome, she was in a mood to quarrel with the whole wide world; and she schooled herself to treat with Staff on terms of toleration only by exercise of considerable self-command and because she was exacting a service of him. So their ride uptown was marked by its atmosphere of distant and dispassionate civility. They spoke infrequently, and then on indifferent topics soon suffered to languish. In due course, however, Staff mastered his resentment and--as evidenced by his wry, secret smile--began to take a philosophic view of the situation, to extract some slight amusement from his insight into Alison's mental processes. Intuitively sensing this, she grew even more exasperated with him--as well as with everybody aside from her own impeccable self. At the St. Simon, Staff soberly escorted the woman to the lounge, meaning to leave her there while he enquired for Eleanor at the office; but they had barely set foot in the apartment when their names were shrieked at them in an excitable, shrill, feminine voice, and Mrs. Ilkington bore down upon them in full regalia of sensation. "My dears!" she cried, regarding them affectionately--"such a surprise! Such a delightful surprise! And so good of you to come to see me so soon! And opportune--I'm dying, positively expiring, for somebody to gossip with. Such a singular thing has happened--" Alison interrupted bluntly: "Where's Miss Searle? Mr. Staff is anxious to see her."